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JOURNALISM 


IN 


CALIFORNIA 

By  JOHN   P.   YOUNG 


Pacific  Coast  and 
Exposition 
Biographies 

4- 


CHRONICLE   PUBLISHING   COMPANY 

SAN    FRANCISCO,    CALIFORNIA 


TIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIMIIIIJIIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIMMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIMIllillllllllll^ 


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PRINTED  AND  BOUND  BY 
W.  B.  CONKEY  COMPANY 
HAMMOND  -  INDIANA 


PREFACE 


**  T  OURNALISM  in  California"'  was  written  to  celc- 
^  brate  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  existence  of  the 
San  Francisco  Chronicle.  It  appeared,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  Chapter  XXIII,  in  the  Golden  Jubilee  and  Ex- 
position Edition  of  the  Chronicle  published  on  January 
IG,  1915.  It  Avas  so  well  received,  and  the-  suggestions 
that  it  should  be  reproduced  in  book  form  were  so  numer- 
ous, that  Mr.  M.  11.  de  Young  decided  upon  issuing  the 
present  edition,  copies  of  which  will  be  sent  to  all  tlie 
newspapers  belonging  to  the  two  leading  newsgathering  as- 
sociations, and  the  important  literary  journals  and  libra- 
ries, and  to  the  various  colleges  of  journalism  in  the 
United  States. 

The  request  that  the  sketch  should  be  given  a  per- 
manent form  came  with  particular  urgency  from  the 
teachers  of  journalism  in  several  American  Universities, 
who  were  pleased  to  say  that  it  would  prove  a  valuable 
auxiliary  in  their  work,  and  to  express  the  hope  that  edi- 
tors in  other  parts  of  the  Union  w^ould  do  for  their  section 
what  the  author  sought  to  accomplish  when  he  wrote 
"Journalism  in  California." 


John  P.  Young. 


San  Francisco,  June  1,  1915. 


innnnn-T-^-^- 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER    I 

THE  PEEIOD  BEFOEE  THE  AWAKENING  OF 
CALIFOENIA. 

A  People  Who  Were  Not  Disturbed  by  News — Naming  of  the  Golden  Gate — 
Communication  Between  the  Missions— First  Printing  Press  in  California^ 
The  Earliest  Discovery  of  Gold  at  Los  Angeles  in  1841 — The  First  House 
in  Yerba  Buena- — The  First  Civic  Improvement  in  California — Marine  In- 
activity and  Industrial  Languor  Match  Each  Other — California's  First  Saw- 
mill— Arrival  of  the  Mormon  Colony — A  Press  and  Font  of  Type  Brought 
in  1846 — California's  First  Paper  Published  at  Monterey  in  1846 — Defense 
Against  Wild  Indians — First  Paper  "Almost  Pays  Expenses  "—First  Type 
Used  in  Monterey  Found  in  One  of  the  Missions — Two  Weeks  Between  Los 
Angeles  and  San  Francisco — The  California  Star  Issued  by  the  Mormons — 
Hard  Times  in  Yerba  Buena — The  First  "Boost"  Article  printed  in  Cali- 
fornia— Desire  to  Make  a  Slave  State  of  California — The  Eush  to  the 
Mines — Yerba  Buena  Is  Officially  Named  San  Francisco  by  Alcalde  Bart- 
lett — Commerce  and  Population  of  San  Francisco  in  1848 Page  1 

CHAPTER    II 

NEWSPAPEE  PEESS  OF  SAN  FEANCTSCO  IN   THE 
EAELY  FIFTIES. 

Changes  in  Journalistic  Methods — Apparent  Innovations  Often  Only  Exaggera- 
tions— A  Six-Column  Description  of  California  Eesources  in  1848 — Early 
Papers  Had  Few  News  Facilities — Pioneer  and  Eastern  Contemporary 
Period  Journalism  Compared — First  Telegraph  Line  in  1852 — Completion 
of  Line  Between  San  Francisco  and  Missouri  Eiver — News  by  Pacific  Mail 
Steamers — Files  of  Eastern  Papers  a  Great  Source  of  News — The  Pony 
Express  and  the  Newspapers — Eeporting  During  the  Fifties — The  First 
Vigilance  Committee — Avoidance  of  Mention  of  Crime  Did  Not  Prevent  Its 
Becoming  Eampant — Twelve  Dailies  in  San  Francisco  in  1851 — Denuncia- 
tions of  Municipal  Corruption — "Affairs  of  Honor"  Common  During  the 
Fifties — The  Newspaper  Graveyard  of  Early  Days— The  Birth  of  the  Alta — 
San  Francisco's  First  Newspaper  Merger^The  Founding  of  the  Bulletin — 
No  Overset  in  Early  Day  Composition  Eooms Page  8 

CHAPTER    III 

POLICIES  AND  ATTITUDE  OF  THE  PEESS 
DUEING  THE  FIFTIES. 

Grafters  Judged  With  Leniency — The  Press  and  the  Land  Grabbers — Collectivism 
Not  in  High  Favor — City  Lots  Solil  for  a  Song — Legislation  to  Eemove 
Clouds  on  Titles^The  Squatter  Troubles — Fraudulent  Spanish  Grants — An 
Attempt  to  Grab  the  Whole  City — Limantour's  Claim  Pronounced  Fraudu- 


ii  Contents 

lent  in  1S58 — The  Condonement  of  Evils — Subordination  of  Loeal  Interest 
to  National  Affairs — The  Constitutional  Convention  of  1850 — The  Slavery 
Question  and  the  Disposition  to  Compromise — Filibusters  and  Filibustering — 
— National  Affairs  Freely  Discussed  by  Editors — The  Fugitive  Slave  Act 
Applauded — Contradictory  Attitude  on  the  Subject  of  Slavery — Opposition 
to  the  Introduction  of  Slaves — Eace  Prejudice  Prevalent — Absolute  Dis- 
regard of  the  Principles  of  Neutrality — Advocacy  of  Cuban  Independence 
in  1851 — The  Manifest  Destiny  Idea — "Fifty- four  Forty  or  Fight" — 
Open  Recruiting  for  Filibustering  Expeditions — Editors  Who  Thought 
Walker  Was  a  Hero — Editors  Who  Could  Smell  Out  Intrigues — American 
and  French  Attempts  to  Grab  Sonora— The  Absorbing  Editorial  Topic — 
— No  Sentiment  in  Favor  of  Dissociating  Local  From  National  Politics — 
A  Scolding  Press  Which  Accomplished  No  Reforms — The  Unceasing  At- 
tempts to  Gain  Party  Advantage — Warfare  Betv^een  Editors .Page  17 

CHAPTER    IV 

DISORDERLY  ELEMENTS  AND  THE  A^GILANCE 
COMMITTEE  OF  1856. 

Events  That  Led  to  the  Committee's  Activities — Neglect  of  Civic  Duties  by  San 
Franciscans — Ballot-Box  Stuffing  and  Ballot  Boxes  With  False  Bottoms — 
Municipal  Extravagance — A  Big  Reduction  in  Expenditures — Nothing  to 
Show  for  Money  Expended — David  Broderick's  Career  as  a  Municipal  Boss 
- — Assaults  of  James  King  of  William  on  David  C.  Broderick — A  Specimen 
Bulletin  Editorial  in  1855 — Sudden  Rise  in  the  Popularity  of  the  Bulletin — 
Popular  Approbation  of  Personal  Journalism — Exposure  of  Jury  Corrup- 
tion— The  Law  and  Order  Party — Casey  Murders  James  King  of  William — 
The  Vigilance  Committee  Hangs  Cora  and  Casey — The  Herald  Ruined  by 
Withdrawal  of  Advertising  Patronage — Earlier  Popularity  of  the  Herald — 
Formation  of  the  People's  Party — Conventionality  Abhorred  by  Early 
Editors  and  Reporters — Honest  Harry  Meiggs — Reporters  Never  Suspected 
His  Shortcomings — His  Unsuccessful  Attempt  to  Divert  Business  to  North 
Beach^Fraudulent  Use  of  City  Scrip — His  Flight  from  San  Francisco  and 
His  Subsequent  Rehabilitation  in  Peru Page  24 

CHAPTER    V 

THE  CALM  THAT  FOLLOWED  THE  VIGILANTE 
STORM  OF  1856. 

Decent  Elements  of  Society  Assume  Control  of  Affairs — The  People's  Party — 
Drifting  in  a  Political  Sargossa  Sea — A  Nominating  Junta — The  People 
Saved  the  Trouble  of  Selecting  Candidates — Reduction  of  Municipal  Ex- 
pejiditures  in  1857 — Bulletin's  Advocacy  of  Pay-as-You-Go  Municipal  Gov- 
ernment— Newspapers  Easily  Founded — Many  Journals  Live  a  Short  Life — 
Limited  Circulation  of  Early  Papers — The  Contents  of  a  Paper  More  Im- 
portant Than  the  Number  of  Cojties  Printed — Per  capita  Consumption  of 
Papers  Very  Small — A  Host  of  Forgotten  Once  Popular  Journals — News- 
papers Make  a  Limited  Appeal  to  Readers — Small  Forces  Required  to  Get 
Out  Daily  Papers — A  Limited  Police  Force  and  Scant  Information  Con- 
cerning Crime  and  Criminals — The  Editor  and  the  Field  of  Honor — Gentle- 
Minded  Men  Who  Called  Each  Other  Hard  Names — The  Attention  Paid 
to  Dramatic  Criticism — Early  Boosters  of  California's  Climate — California 
Spoken   of   as   God 's    Country Page  33 

CHAPTER    VI 

VARIOUS  TROUBLES  ON  THE  EVE  OF  THE 
CIVIL  WAR. 

Effect  of  Telegraph  Construction  on  Appetite  for  News — San  Francisco  Papers 
Take  on  a  More  Newsy  Appearance — Backroom  Nominations  Cheerfully  Ac- 
cepted— An  Insistent  Demand  for  Retrenchment — Hot  Discussions  of  Burn- 


Contents 


H! 


ing  Questions — No  Doubt  Eegarding  Stand  Taken  by  Editors — David  C. 
Broderick's  Career  in  San  Francisco — Broderick's  Championship  of  Free 
Labor — Loose  A'iews  Concerning  the  Institution  of  Slavery — Broderick 
Elected  United  States  Senator — Broderick  and  Terry  Members  of  Law  and 
Order  Party  in  1856 — Terry  Kills  Broderick  in  a  Duel — A  Forerunner  of 
Evils  to  Come — Not  Much  Interest  in  State  Division — San  Francisco  Not 
Eager  to  Become  a  Capital — All  Agreed  on  Subject  of  Importance  of  the 
Harbor — Fremont 's  Prophetic  Instinct — Maritime  Proclivities  of  Early 
Press — The  Defeat  of  the  Bulkhead  Scheme — A  Seawall  Project  Headed 
Off — Editors  Stimulating  Agricultural  Development — Advocacy  of  Big 
Farms — The  Mining  Industry  Kegarded  as  the  Premier Page  42 

CHAPTER    YII 

JOURNALISTIC   METHODS   OF    THE   LATE   FIFTIES   AND 
EAELY   SIXTIES. 

A  Long  List  of  Defunct  Newspapers — Papers  Conducted  to  Forward  Political 
Aspirations  of  Owners — Wires  Sparingly  Used  in  Early  Days — Use  of 
Italics  in  Early  Days — The  Tyranny  of  the  Composition  Boom — The  Day 
When  Many  Jobs  Were  Performed  by  One  Person — When  Big  Type  Was 
Frowned  Upon — Effects  of  the  Cheapening  of  White  Paper — The  Big  In- 
crease of  Price  During  the  Civil  War — Early  Day  Eeporting  Criticised — Not 
Many  Trained  Reporters — Editors  Guess  What  Reporters  Fail  to  Discover — 
Facts  Carefully  Concealed  by  Papers — The  Press  and  the  Slavery  Question 
on  the  Outbreak  of  the  War — A  Minister  Who  Would  Not  Pray  for  the 
President— Few  Editors  Called  to  an  Accounting  for  Their  Proclivities — 
A  Civil  War  Fighting  Editor — Newspaper  Offices  Gutted  When  Lincoln 
Was  Assassinated — Adherence  of  California  to  Gold  Money — The  Specific 
Contract  Legislation — Influence  Exerted  by  the  Press  to  Promote  Honest 
Monetary  Dealing   Page  53 

CHAPTER    YIII 

THE  CHRONICLE  ENTERS  THE  FIELD  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO 
JOURNALISM. 

Advent  of  the  Examiner — Its  Founders — The  Youthful  Projectors  of  The 
Chronicle — Acumen  Displayed  in  Selecting  a  Title — An  Amusement  Loving 
Public — A  Newspaper  P"'rom  the  Very  Beginning — San  Francisco  Restaurants 
During  the  Sixties — The  First  Home  of  The  Chronicle — Hustling  to  Get 
Money  for  a  Start — Rapid  Growth  of  Popularity  Eases  Finances — Mark 
Twain's  Contributions  to  the  Dramatic  Chronicle — The  Budding  Author  Has 
Desk  Room  in  Dramatic  Chronicle  Office — Bret  Harte  Helps  Out  With  In- 
teresting Squibs — The  Criticisms  of  Tremenhcre  Johns  of  the  Dramatic 
Chronicle — The  Efforts  of  the  Beginners  Cause  Amusement — Prosperity  Soon 
Follows  Success — Movement  to  New  Quarters  on  Montgomery  Street — A 
Handsome  Sign,  of  Which  the  Yo'ithful  Publishers  Were  Very  Proud — A 
Theater  Manager  and  Actress  AVho  Disliked  Criticism — First  News  of  the  As- 
sassination of  President  Abraham  Lincoln — Early  Efforts  to  Illustrate  a 
Daily  Newspaper — Extras  Tell  of  the  Gutting  of  Local  Newspaper  Offices. Page  63 

CHAPTER    IX 

MANY  INNOVATIONS  BY  THE   BROTHERS,  CHARLES   AND 
M.  H.  de  YOUNG. 

The  Chronicle  Begins  to  Make  Investigations — Early  Contributors  to  the  Sun- 
day Edition — Charles  Warren  Stoddard,  Prentice  Mulford  and  Anna  Cora 
Mowatt  Ritchie — The  Chronicle's  First  London  Correspondent — The  Prefix 
Dramatic  Dropped — The  Daily  Morning  ('hronicle — The  Earthquake  of 
1868— An  Extra  Issued  While  the  Earth  Was  Trembling— The  Enterprise 


iv  Contents 


of  the  Bulletin — Career  of  the  Alta  California — Policies  of  the  Bulletin 
and  Call — The  Attitude  of  the  San  Francisco  Press  Toward  the  Railroad — 
Fear  of  Goat  Island  Becoming  a  Rival  City — When  the  Southern  Pacific  was 
"The  Railroad"— Little  Distrust  of  the  Future— The  Press  Confident  That 
the  Railroad  Would  Promote  Prosperity — The  Mania  for  Mining  Stock 
Speculation — The  Rush  to  the  White  Pine  Mines — A  Hopeful  Press  on 
the  Eve  of  Hard  Times Page  70 

CHAPTER    X 

STOCK   GAMBLTNCt   AND   OTHER   TROUBLES 
IN  THE  SEVENTIES 

Conditions  Preceding  the  Adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  1879 — Henry  George's 
Connection  with  the  Chronicle — General  Protest  Against  Land  Monopoly — 
Disturbing  Results  of  the  Spanish  and  Mexican  Land  Grant  System — The 
Revivifying  Influence  of  the  Finding  of  Large  Bodies  of  Ore  in  Nevada — 
The  Big  Bonanza  Discovery  and  Its  Effects — The  Rage  for  Gambling  in 
Mining  Stocks — Stock  Gandding  an  Excuse  for  All  Delinquencies — The 
Big  Deals  Put  Over — Men  Who  Yearned  for  Misinformation — The  Failure  of 
the  Bank  of  California  and  the  Death  of  Ralston — Manufacturing  Enter- 
prises That  Did  Not  Succeed — Early  Aspirations  for  a  "City  Beautiful" 
on  the  Bay  of  San  Francisco — The  Industrial  Activities  of  Ralston — The 
First  Irrigation  Project  and  Its  Outcome — Abatement  of  the  Speculative 
Mania — A    Milked-Dry    Community Page  78 

CHAPTEE    XI 

THE  STORY  OF  GEORGE  M.  PINNEY  AND  A  BIG 
LIBEL  SUIT. 

Result  of  Agitation  Against  Land  Monopoly — The  Product  of  the  Bonanza  Mines 
— An  Extremely  Capable  Chief  Clerk  of  the  Mint — The  Meteoric  Career 
of  George  M.  Pinney — Broker,  Millionaire,  Enlisted  Man  and  a  Political 
Boss  All  Rolled  Into  One  Personality — Pinney  Meets  With  Reverses  and 
Flees  the  Country — His  Adventurous  Voyage  to  South  America — Sends  Out 
S.  O.  S.  Calls,  Which  Are  Not  Heeded — Pinney  Surrenders  Himself  as  a 
Deserter  from  the  Navy — Pinney  Makes  Accusations  Which  Create  a  Sen- 
sation— Politicians  Invoke  the  Law  of  Libel- — The  Chronicle  Assailed  for 
Exposing  Political  Corruption — How  an  Editor  Got  Rid  of  Some  Bad  Eggs — 
Pinney  Has  an  Attack  of  Forgetfulness — Pinney 's  Financial  Operations 
Cause  the  Wreck  of  Several  Banks — Creation  of  a  Bank  Commission  the 
Result  of  The  Chronicle  's  Exposures Page  84 

CHAPTER    XII 

THE   CHRONICLE'S   SUCCESSFUL    FIGHT   FOR 
THE   CONSTITUTION  OF   1879. 

A  Misrepresented  Organic  Law — Assaults  on  the  Men  Who  Framed  It — The 
Unreasoning  Fears  and  Unscrupulous  Methods  of  Its  Opponents — The 
Chronicle's  A'igorous  Fight  for  the  Instrument — Big  Sums  of  Money  Ex- 
pended to  Beat  the  New  Organic  Law — Fruitless  Efforts  to  Muzzle  The 
Chronicle — Threats  of  withdrawal  of  Patronage  Fail  to  Intimidate — The 
Charge  That  It  Was  a  Sand-Lot  Instrument  Refuted — Framed  by  the  Best 
Legal  Talent  of  California — The  Chronicle's  Defense  of  the  Freedom  of 
the  Press — Composition  of  the  Constitutional  Convention — A  Thoroughly 
Discussed  Document — Settling  a  Question  of  Newspaper  Makeup — Meet- 
ings Organized  by  M.  H.  de  Young — A  Big  Meeting  in  the  Mechanics' 
Pavilion — Victory  Celebrated  by  Fireworks. Page  9] 


Contents 


CHAPTER    XIII 

OLD-FASHIONED   METHODS   OF   NEWSPAPER ING 
DISAPPEARING. 

Journalistic  Progress  in  San  Francisco — History  in  Outline — Appearance  of 
Newspapers  During  the  Seventies — Breaking  Away  From  Conventionalised 
Metliods — San  Francisco's  First  Eight-Page  Paper — An  Olil-Tinie  Supple- 
ment— Newspaper  Offices  on  Side  Streets — Publication  Center  in  Unsavory 
Quarters — The  Chronicle's  Bold  Move  to  Kearny  Street- — First  San  Fran- 
cisco Newspaper  to  Have  a  Real  Home  of  Its  Own — Newspapers  That 
Lacked  Confidence  in  the  Future — Changes  in  Ownership  of  Papers — The 
Bulletin  and  Call  Under  Pickering,  Fitch  and  Simonton — Printing  on  a 
Hand-Fed  Press — Highly-Paid  Hand  Composition — News])aper  Career  of 
Henry  George — Robert  Louis  Stevenson  and  the  Newspapers — Bryce 's 
Opinion  of  The  Chronicle — Writers  With  Imagination — The  Pioneer  Sun- 
day Magazine  of  the  Daily  Press  of  America — Reporting  Sports  and  Sport 
News — San  Francisco's  First  Sporting  Editor — Newspaper  Staffs  Re- 
cruited from  the  Pulpit,  the  Schoolroom  and  the  Bar — The  Chronicle  a 
Training  School — Expounders  of  "Sound"  Democratic  Doctrine — Found- 
ing of  the  Argonatit — The  News  Letter  and  Its  Writers — Samuel  Seabough 
a  Forceful  Editorial  Writer — Boosting  a  Senatorial  Candidate  and  Its 
Results — The  Chronicle  Gets  a  New  Managing  Editor , Page  97 

CHAPTEE    XIY 

JOURNALISM  BEGINS   TO  FIND  ITSELF  IN 
SAN  FRANCISCO 

San  Francisco 's  First  Newspaper  Building — The  Chronicle 's  Home  on  the 
Corner  of  Kearny  and  Bush  Streets — An  Exhibition  of  Confidence  in  the 
Future — A  Thoroughly  Up-to-Date  Plant — Those  Who  Inspected  It  Believed 
It  Would  Never  Be  Outgrown — First  American  Demonstration  of  Electric 
Lighting  in  Chronicle  Otfice — An  Illustration  of  the  Journalism  That  Does 
Things — When  Kearny  and  Bush  Streets  Were  the  City 's  Center — The  Germ 
of  the  Index  Card  System — The  Chronicle's  Contemporary  Library — A  Big 
Account  of  a  Big  Fire — The  Big  Inyo  Earthquake  Pictures  by  The  Chron- 
icle— The  Diamond  Mine  Swindle  Exposure — The  Battle  in  the  Lava  Beds 
With  Modoc  Indians — An  Interview  Which  Attracted  World-Wide  Attention 
— When  Interviewing  Was  Much  in  Vogue — Passangers  by  Rail  Prom  the 
East  Win  Distinction — Publication  of  Letter  Lists— No  Press  Club  in  Early 
Days — Newspaper  Men  Who  Were  Bohemians — The  Glorification  of  San 
Francisco  and  Its  Atmosphere — Liberal  Use  of  the  Wire Page  107 

CHAPTER    XV 

PEOBLEMS  RAISED  AND  TROUBLES  PRODUCED 
BY  NEW  ORGANIC  LAW. 

Result  of  Adoption  of  Constitution  of  1879— There  Was  No  Hegira  of  Capital— 
The  Last  Big  Mining  Stock  Deal — A  Quietus  on  Stock  GamVjling — The  Con- 
stitution's Adherents  Were  the  People  of  the  Interior — Greed  of  Agitators 
for  Office  an  Obstacle  to  Realization  of  Benefits — Charles  de  Young  the 
Ablest  Newspaper  Man  Produced  by  San  Francisco — The  Reception  to  Gen- 
eral Gr.int— It  Enabled  The  Chronicle  to  Set  the  Pace  in  Reporting— A 
World-Beating  Journalistic  Exploit— A  People  Proud  of  Their  Paper — 
Another  Great  Report  of  a  Big  Local  Event— The  Author's  Carnival— The 
First  Real  Woman  Journalist — A  Case  of  Makeshift  Illustration — Renewal  ■ 
of  Prosperity — The  Crusade  Against  Chinese  Immigration — Passage  of  the 
Exclusion  Act  by  Congress — A  Great  Wheat  Producing  State— Popularity  of 
The  Chronicle's  Annuals — The  Chronicle's  Thoroughness Page  116 


y'l  Contents 


CHAPTER    XVI 

NOTABLE  INSTANCES  OF  THE  "JOURNALISM  THAT  DOES 
THINGS. ' ' 

Slow  Eecognition  of  the  Demaiul  for  Eegulation  of  Monopolies — Democratic  De- 
fenders of  the  Eailroads — Eastern  Attitude  Slow  to  Crystallize — The  Frus- 
tration of  Attempts  to  Reform — A  Problem  That  California  Migh  Have  Suc- 
cessfully Worked  Out — Failure  to  Elect  Honest  Commissions — A  Victim  of 
Judge-Made  Law — Absurd  Results  of  the  Board  of  Equalization  Decision — 
The  Evils  of  Non-Partisanism— Political  Career  of  George  Hearst — He 
Makes  a  Handsome  Present  to  His  Son — Examiner  Passes  Into  Possession  of 
William  R.  Hearst — The  Chronicle's  Advocacy  of  the  Protective  Policy — A 
History  of  Education  in  the  United  States — Another  Instance  of  the  Journal- 
ism That  Does  Things — The  Chronicle  Demonstrates  the  Desirability  of 
Weather  Warnings  to  Agriculturists  and  Fruit  Growers — Millions  Saved  to 
the  State  by  Newspaper  Enterprise — The  Chronicle  Forms  a  News  Associa- 
tion— Numerous  Patrons  Served — Chronicle  Press  Association  Absorbed  by 
Associated  Press — M.  H.  de  Young  a  Director  of  Associated  Press  for 
Twenty-seven  Years — Illustration  Growth — Big  Type  in  Heads — Book 
Reviews — Dramatic  Critics — A  Training  School  for  Statesmen — Noted 
contributors Page  123 

CHAPTER    XVII 

MIDWINTER  EXPOSITION  OF   1894  AND  ITS  EXTRAORDINARY 

SUCCESS. 

A  New  Building  for  The  Chronicle  at  Market,  Geary  and  Kearny — An  Archi- 
tectural Departure  Which  Caused  Much  Headshaking — M.  H.  de  Young's 
Bold  Innovation- — The  Chronicle  's  Big  Strides  in  the  Eleven  Years  Between 
1879  and  1890 — A  Sixty-Page  Edition — Some  Remarkable  Comparisons — 
Hard  Times  After  a  Period  of  Prosperity — A  Successful  Attempt  to  Turn 
Aside  Adversity — M.  H.  de  Young's  Proposition  to  Hold  a  Midwinter  Fair — 
A  Conspicuous  Instance  of  the  Journalism  That  Does  Things — The  Story  of 
a  Big  Enterprise — The  Manner  of  Its  Suggestion  in  Chicago  at  the  Colum- 
bian Fair — An  Idea  Received  With  Enthusiasm — The  Ball  Set  Rolling  in 
Chicago — Local  Attempts  to  Head  off  the  Project — Fears  That  It  Could 
Not  be  Successfully  Carried  Through — The  First  Modest  Plans — Organiza- 
tion Effected  and  M.  H.  de  Young  Selected  Director-General — Commissioners 
Oppose  Location  of  Fair  in  Golden  Gate  Park — Formal  Ground  Breaking 
August  24,  1893 — Work  for  the  Unemployed — Four  Short  Months  in  Which 
to  Get  Ready — One  Hundred  and  Fifty  Buildings  Erected — Ready  to  Open 
on  Time — A  Succession  of  Festivals  and  Other  Events — An  Exposition 
Which  Was  Made  to  Finance  Itself— What  It  Did  for  Golden  Gate  Park 
and  the  City  of  San  Francisco Page  135 

CHAPTER    XVIII 

JOURNALISTIC  CHANGES  AND  POLICIES  PRIOR 
TO   NINETEEN  HUNDRED. 

No  Monopoly  in  the  Field  of  Journalism — Great  Journals  the  Product  of  Toil 
and  Patient  Upl)uihling — The  Disappearance  of  the  Alta  California — A 
Newspaper  Killed  by  Cheapness — Objection  to  the  Introduction  of  Pennies — 
Diminishing  Interest  in  Stock  Speculation  Causes  Death  of  Two  Papers — 
The  Bulletin  and  Call  Change  Hands — John  D.  Spreckels  Acquires  the  Call — 
Strenuous  Adherence  to  the  Policy  of  Pay-asyouGo — The  New  City  Hall 
of  1870  a  Ruin  Before  It  Was  Finished — Property  Sold  by  the  City  Repur- 
chased to  Secure  a  Building  Site — The  Dollar  Limit  of  Taxation  and  the 
Water  Supply — The  Regulation  of  Water  Rates — Dollar  Tax  Limit  Used 
as  a  Political  Bait  by  Boss  Buckley — Newspaper  Hostility  to  Smooth  Pave- 


Contents  vii 


ments — Editors  Who  Were  Eeserved  in  the  Matter  of  Expressing  Opinion — 
Samuel  S.  Moffat 's  Free  Trade  Articles  in  the  Examiner — The  Chronicle 's 
Advocacy  of  the  Development  of  the  Eesources  of  the  State — Helping  Neigh- 
boring States  and  Territories — Good  Advice  Given  to  Southern  Californians — 
The  Eush  to  the  Klondike — Big  Force  Sent  to  Eeport  the  Discoveries — A 
Twelve-Page  Edition  of  the  Northern  El  Dorado — Optimistic  Predictions 
Concerning  Alaska — A  Book  Published  in  a  Single  Issue — Chronicle  Mono- 
graphs Eeprodueed  as  Public  Documents  by  Congress Page  141 

CHAPTER    XIX 

CHANGING  METHODS  AND  FEATUEES  OF 
MODEEN  NEWSPAPEES. 

Effect  of  the  Cheapening  of  Printing  Paper — Cause  of  the  Popularity  of  the  Sun- 
day Magazine — Contributors  of  the  Highest  Bank — The  Sunday  Magazine 
Has  Eliminated  "Grub  Street" — Development  of  the  Syndicate — Effect  of 
Illustration  on  the  Production  of  Magazine  Matter — Improvement  in  the  Pro- 
duction of  Pictures — Introduction  of  Typesetting  Machines — General  Adop- 
tion of  the  Linotype  by  Newspaper  Offices — Growing  Propensity  to  Dress 
Papers — Introduction  and  Use  of  the  Telephone — Care  Taken  to  Verify 
Eumors  and  State  Facts  Correct!}' — The  Part  Played  by  the  Telephone  in 
Getting  at  the  Truth — General  Use  of  T^vpewriting  Machines  in  Newspaper 
Offices — Copyreaders  and  Compositors  Grateful  for  Their  Introduction — 
Shorthand  Eeports  Not  Commonly  Made  in  American  Newspaper  Offices — 
Effect  of  Longhand  Eeporting  oii  the  Development  of  Literary  Style — The 
First  Sunday  Editor  of  The  Chronicle — Writers  Who  Came  From  the  Case — 
Attaches  of "  The  Chronicle  Who  Have  Made  Their  Mark— Well-known  San 
Francisco  Newspaper  Men  Now  in  Other  Fields — Frank  Norris'  Early  Con- 
nections—The Chronicle  's  City  Editors Page  153 

CHAPTER   XX 

AFFAIES  ON  THE  EYE  OF  SAN  FEANCISCO'S  GEEAT 
DISASTEE. 

Efforts  of  San  Francisco  to  Obtain  a  New  Charter— Strenous  Opposition  of  Part 
of  the  Press  to  Abandoning  the  Consolidation  Act  of  18-36 — Contests  Over 
Details — A  Charter  Finally  Adopted  in  1898 — The  Changed  Attitude  of  Bulle- 
tin and  Call  After  1895 — San  Francisco  Embarks  on  a  Career  of  Improve- 
ment— Approval  of  Park  Panhandle  Boulevard  Project — The  Chronicle  's  Ex- 
posure of  Graft,  and  Its  Opposition  to  Grafters — Creation  of  the  Euef-Schmitz 
Machine— Eeformers  Who  Eefused  to  be  Stirred  Into  Action — Euef  and 
Schniitz  Claim  That  Their  Administration  Brought  Prosperity  to  San  Fran- 
cisco—The Bitter  Antagonism  of  The  Chronicle  to  the  Grafters— The  Burning 
of  the  Tower  of  The  Chronicle  Building— Suit  Brought  by  Members  of 
Schmitz  Gang  Against  The  Chronicle— It  Took  an  Earthquake  to  Eouse  the 
Eeformers  to  Action— The  Visit  of  Eoosevelt  to  San  Francisco— His  Approval 
of  The  Chronicle's  Political  Course— Protection  Versus  Bimetallism— Pro- 
prietor of  The  Chronicle  Elects  to  Stand  by  the  Former— Schemes  for  Beauti- 
fying the  City— Summer  Outing  Editions  of  The  Chronicle— Charity  Work 
Done  by  Newspapers— Women 's  Clubs  and  the  Press— Cartooning,  and 
Chronicle    Catoonists    P^«®  ^^^ 

CHAPTER    XXI 

SAN  FEANCISCO'S   GEEAT  DISASTEE   AND  ITS  EAPID 
EECOVEEY. 

Newspaper  Warnings  That  Went  Unheeded— Prosperity  Produces  a  Careless  Atti- 
tude Toward  Municipal  Government— The  Chronicle  the  Only  Paper  Hate.l 
by  the  Grafters— Eeformers  Inactive  on  the  Eve  of  the  Great  Conflagration— 
A  Case  of  Purification  by  Fire— Part   Played   by  the   Press  m  the  Great 


viii  Contents 

Disaster — IJespondiiifr  to  the  Call  of  a  Self -Imposed  Obligation — Prepara- 
tions to  Get  Out  an  Extra — A  Messenger  Sent  to  Oakland  Asking  Hos- 
pitality— The  Joint  Paper  Published  on  the  Morning  of  April  19,  1906 —  . 
It  was  a  Marvel  of  Calm  Statement — A  Journal  That  Lived  One  Day  Only — 
Charles  de  Young  Eeceives  His  Baptism  of  Journalistic  Fire— He  reorgan- 
izes the  Circulation  Department — Paper  Temporarily  Printed  in  Oakland — 
The  Loss  of  The  Chronicle 's  Eeference  Library — Charles  de  Young  Made 
Business  Manager  of  The  Chronicle — Men  Who  Retained  Their  Positions 
During  Long  Perioils — A  Great  Newspaper  Feat  Successfully  Carried 
Through  by  Charles  de  Young — Tetrazzini  Sings  in  the  Open  Air  on  Christ- 
n'as  Eve  at  the  Eequest  of  The  Chronicle — The  Untimely  Death  of  Charles 
de   Young    Page  170 

CHAPTER    XXII 

THE  LATEST  DEVELOPMENTS  IN  THE  FIELD  OF 
JOURNALISM. 

Purchase  of  the  San  Francisco  Call  by  M.  H.  de  Young — Eetirement  from  the 
Field  of  a  Survivor  from  Pioneer  Days — Introduction  of  Wireless  Telegraphy 
■ — Increased  Complexity  of  Newspapering — An  Album  of  Portraits  of  the 
Working  Force  of  The  Chronicle — Eemarkable  Expansion  of  the  Midwinter 
Exposition  Memorial  Museum — A  Product  of  the  Journal  That  Does 
Things — The  Chronicle 's  Christmas  Ship — Over  a  Quarter  of  a  Million 
Articles  Sent  to  the  Little  Ones  of  W^arring  Europe — Charles  de  Y'oung  's 
Efforts  to  Brighten  the  Lives  of  Unfortunates — Eescuing  the  Careless  from 
the  Clutches  of  Loan  Sharks — The  Chronicle 's  Japanese  and  Pan-American 
Editions — Imminence  of  Another  Chronicle  Skyscraper   Page  180 

CHAPTER    XXIII 

THE   CHEONICLE'S  GOLDEN  JUBILEE   AND 
EXPOSITION  EDITION. 

A  Publication  That  Stimulated  Interest  in  the  P.  P.  I.  E. — Ninety-two  Pages 
of  Eeading  Matter  and  Illustrations — Advertising  Eecord  Breaker — Aus- 
picious Opening  of  San  Francisco 's  Great  Show— Critics  Declare  That  It 
Has  Surpassed  All  Previous  Expositions — Eecord  Breaking  Attendance  of 
the  First  Months- — An  Ancient  Question  Up  for  Decision — The  Attempt  to 
Unload  Spring  Valley  on  the  City — A  Contest  in  Which  The  Chronicle  Stood 
Alone   and    Won    Out Page  190 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Frontispiece — Charles  and  M.  H.  de 
Young,  founders  of  the  San  Fran- 
cisco Chronicle,  and  Charles  de 
Young,   son   of  the  latter. 

2 — Prospectus  of  first  paper  published 
in  California. 

3 — Rev.  Walter  Colton,  editor  of  first 
paper  published  in  California. 

5 — Samuel  Brannan,  publisher  of  Cali- 
fornia Star  of  San  Francisco. 

6 — The  Washington  press  on  which 
San  Francisco's  first  paper  was 
printed. 

7 — Monument  to  Father  Junipero  Serra 
in  Golden  Gate  Park. 

14 — Daily  Alta  California,  containing 
account  of  wreclv  of  the  George 
Law. 

20 — William  Walker,  the  Nicaraguan 
filibuster. 

26 — James  King  of  William,  murdered 
by  James  P.  Casey  in  1856. 

27 — Pictorial  Town  Talk,  with  an  ac- 
count of  the  Vigilance  Committee's 
doings. 

30 — William  T.  Coleman,  leader  of  Vigi- 
lance Committee  of  1856. 

|4 — Harry  Meiggs,  one  of  San  Fran- 
cisco's earliest  promoters. 

♦  3 — David  S.  Terry  and  David  C.  Brod- 
erick,  principals  in  a  duel  of  the 
fifties. 

64 — Title  page  of  the  Dramatic  Chron- 
icle, showing  form  in  which  San 
Francisco  Chronicle  first  appeared. 

65 — The  home  of  the  San  Francisco 
Chronicle  on  Montgomery  street  in 
1865. 

66 — Mark  Twain. 

68 — Bret  Harte. 

70 — Charles  Warren  Stoddard. 

79 — Pine-street  Mining  Stock  Exchange 
and  Montgomery  street  during  tlie 
seventies. 

81 — William  Sharon  and  William  C. 
Ralston. 

82 — Interior  Court  of  Palace  Hotel, 
erected  by  W.  C.  Ralston  in  1S75, 
destroyed  by  fire  of  1906. 

93 — Dennis  Kearney,  the  Sand  Lot 
agitator   of  the  seventies. 


95 — The  fifth  Mechanics'  Pavilion,  on 
the  corner  of  Mission  and  Eighth 
streets,  in  which  the  great  meeting 
advocating  the  adoption  of  the  Con- 
stitution of  1879  was  held. 

99 — Title  page  of  first  eight-page  paper 
printed  in  San  Francisco. 

101 — Evolution  of  the  Printing  Press: 
Washington  hand.  Hoe  four-cylin- 
der   and    modern    perfecting    press. 

102 — Henry  George,  author  of  "Progress 
and  Poverty." 

108 — Chronicle  building,  erected  by  the 
brothers,  Charles  and  M.  H.  de 
Young  in  1879  on  corner  of  Kearny 
and  Bush  streets. 

110 — Chronicle's  Reference  Library,  first 
organized  in  1879. 

lis — Chronicle  building  decorated,  on  the 
occasion  of  reception  of  General 
Grant  on  his  return  from  his  world 
tour. 

128 — Bulletin  board  of  Weather  Service 
started  by  Chronicle  in  1885  to 
demonstrate  the  feasibility  of  giv- 
ing timely  warnings  to  the  agri- 
culturists cf  California,  subse- 
quently adopted  by  the  Government. 

136 — First  steel  "skyscraper"  in  San 
Francisco,  erected  by  M.  H.  de 
Young  in  1890,  on  the  corner  of 
Market,  Geary  and  Kearny  streets, 
and  occupied  by  The  Chronicle  until 
June,  1906. 

138 — The  Midwinter  Exposition  buildings 
in  1894.  The  exposition  was  sug- 
gested by  M.  H.  de  Young,  who  was 
made  its  President  and  Director- 
General. 


148—' 

154- 
156- 

158- 
164- 


Chris    Buckley,    the   Blind   Boss    of 
the  Democratic  party. 

-Robert  Louis  Stevenson. 

-A  part  of  the  San  Francisco  Chron- 
icle's battery  of  Linotypes. 


-Joaquin  Miller. 

-Destruction  of  the  tower  of  the 
Chronicle  building  on  the  night  of 
November   5,    1905. 

-Title  page  of  the  joint  paper  issued 
by  San  Francisco's  three  morning 
papers  on  the  day  after  the  disaster 
of  1906. 


Illustrations 


176 — 1 'resent  home  of  the  San  Francisco 
Chronicle,  constructed  by  M.  H.  de 
Young  after  the  disaster  of  1900. 
The  first  building  erected  in  the 
downtown  district  after  the  great 
fire. 

185  (2  cuts  on  one  page) — Thanksgiv- 
ing day  at  the  Kelief  Home  and 
the  Children's  Hospital.  The  cus- 
tom of  entertaining  the  children 
was  inaugurated  by  Charles  de 
Young  and  has  been  kept  up  since 
his  death  by  his  father,  M.  H.  de 
Young. 

186- — The  Midwinter  Exposition  Memorial 
Museum  in  Golden  Gate  Park. 

188 — Trucks  loaded  with  contributions  of 
clothing,  toys,  etc.,  collected  by  the 
San  Francisco  Chronicle  for  tlie 
women  and  children  of  the  warring 
nations  of  Europe. 

189 — Willis  Polk  and  Company's  Design 
for  a  New  Chronicle  Building. 

191 — Panoramic  view  of  Panama-Pacific 
International  Exposition  and  Di- 
rectors. Key  to  portraits:  (1)  Leon 
Sloss,  vice-president;  (2)  I.  W. 
Hellman  Jr.,  vice-president;    (3)    R. 

B.  Hale,  vice-president;  (4)  Charles 

C.  Moore,  president;  (5)  "W.  H. 
Crocker,  vice-president;  (6)  M.  H. 
de  Young,  vice-president;  (7) 
James  Rolph  Jr.,  vice-president;  (S) 
Captain    John    Barneson;    (9)    John 


194- 


A.  Britton;  (10)  George  T.  Cam- 
eron; (11)  R.  A.  Crothers;  (12) 
Henry  T.  Scott;  (13)  A.  W.  Foster; 
(14)  Curtis  H.  Lindley;  (15)  James 
McNab;  (16)  Rudolph  J.  Taussig, 
secretary;  (17)  M.  J.  Brandenstein; 
(18)  Frank  L.  Brown;  (19)  P.  T. 
Clay;  (20)  Alfred  I.  Esberg;  (21) 
Henry  F.  Fortmann;  (22)  Homer  S. 
King;  (23)  A.  W.  Scott  Jr.;  (24) 
Charles  S.  Stanton;  (25)  C.  S.  Fee; 
(26)  Joseph  S.  Tobin;  (27)  Dent  H. 
Robert;  (28)  Thornwell  Mullally; 
(29)  P.  H.  McCarthy. 

-Title  page  of  Jubilee  Edition  of 
San  Francisco  (I^^hronicle,  published 
January  16,    1915. 


195 — Scene  at  the  Panama-Pacific  Inter- 
national Exposition  on  the  opening 
day. 

200 — Sculpture  at  the  Exposition: 
Autumn,  by  Furio  Piccirilli. 

204 — Palace  of  Fine  Arts,  Panama-Pa- 
cific International  Exposition. 

208 — Sculpture  at  the  Exposition:  The 
Genius  of  Creation,  by  Daniel 
Chester   French. 

212 — California  Building,  Panama-Pa- 
cific International  Exposition. 

220 — Sculpture  at  the  Exposition:  Water, 
by  Robert  Aitken. 


CHAPTER   I 

THE  PERIOD  BEFORE  THE  AWAKENING  OF 
CALIFORNIA. 


People  Who  "Were  Not  Disturbed  by  News — Naming  of  the  Gohlen  Gate — Com- 
munication Between  the  Missions — First  Printing  Press  in  California — The  Earli- 
est Discovery  of  Gold  at  Los  Angeles  in  1841 — The  First  House  in  Yerba  Buena — 
The  First  Civic  Improvement  in  California — Marine  Inactivity  and  Industrial 
Languor  Match  Each  Other — California's  First  Sawmill — Arrival  of  the  Mormon 
Colony — A  Press  and  Font  of  Tyjje  Brought  in  1846 — California's  First  Paper 
Published  at  Monterey  in  1846 — Defense  Against  Wild  Indians — Firsc  Paper 
"Almost  Pays  Expenses" — First  Type  Used  in  Monterey  Found  in  One  of  the 
Missions — Two  Weeks  Between  Los  Angeles  and  San  Francisco — The  California 
Star  Issued  by  the  Mormons — Hard  Times  in  Yerba  Buena — The  First  "Boost" 
Article  Printed  in  California — Desire  to  Make  a  Slave  State  of  California — The 
Rush  to  the  Mines — Yerba  Buena  Is  Officially  Named  San  Francisco  by  Alcalde 
Bartlett — Commerce  and  Population  of  San  Francisco  in  1848. 


URIXCI  the  seventy  years  intervening  between  the  naming 
of  the  Mission  JDolores  by  Juan  Bautista  de  Anza  on 
March  28,  1776,  and  the  proclamation  of  Commodore 
Sloat  on  the  7th  of  July,  18-i6,  in  which  he  announced 
to  the  natives  of  California  that  they  were  to  enjoy  the 
advantages  of  the  beneficent  institutions  of  the  United 
States,  the  vast  region  now  forming  the  second  largest 
state  in  tiie  American  Union  liad  experienced  an  almost 
undisturbed  repose.  The  few  easily  quelled  uprisings  of  Indians,  and  the 
occasional  dissensions  between  the  religieuse  and  the  military  authorities, 
and  the  not  very  serious  feuds  of  the  more  prominent  of  the  gonte  de  razon 
were  all  that  happened  to  cause  a  ripple  on  the  surface  of  the  placid  life  of 
the  sparsely  inhabited  country. 

The  people  of  California  lived  a  life  so  entirely  apart  from  that  of  the 
rest  of  the  world  that  the  successful  revolution  of  IMexico  in  1823  scarcely 
afforded  a  real  sensation.  The  interests  of  the  province  were  necessarily 
vitally  affegted  by  the  shaking  off  of  Spanish  rule,  but  the  event  probably 
excited  less  general  interest  than  a  primary  election  does  today.  There 
were  sporadic  exhibitions  of  differences  of  opinion  by  the  more  prominent 
landowners,  and  some  show  of  opposition  was  made  by  one  or  two  padres, 
but,  on  the  whole,  acquiescence  in  the  change  of  rulers  came  so  easily  the 
inference  is  permissible  that  it  was  the  product  of  indifference. 

It  does  not  require  much  penetration  to  understand  the  cause  of  this 
attitude.     During  the  three-quarters  of  a  century  between  the  day  when 


Journalism  in  California 


Portola's  hunting  party  discovered  the  bay  of  San  Francisco  in  1769,  and 
the  entrance  of  Fremont's  first  exploring  party  into  the  prov- 
p    .   ,  ince  in  1848,  the  natives  of  California  had  lived  lives  as 

of  devoid  of  active  curiosity  as  of  ambition.     The  padres  were 

Repose  engrossed  in  the  work  of  saving  the  souls  of  the  Indians  who 

became  inmates  of  the  mission  establishments;  and  the  few 
soldiers  who  garrisoned  the  widely  separated  posts,  and  the  beneficiaries 
of  land  grants  and  their  dependents  vegetated. 

The  turmoil  of  the  outside  world  caused  them  no  unrest,  and  only 
the  echoes  of  revolutions  reached  their  ears.  It  is  related  by  a  French 
traveler  named  De  Mofrat,  who  visited  California  some  years  after  the 
overthrow  of  the  Bourbons,  that  he  heard  the  Indian  neophytes  singing  mass 
to  the  tune  of  "The  Marseillaise,"  which  had  been  taught  them  by  one  of 
the  padres  who  had  probably  never  heard  of  the  enthronement  of  the 
goddess  of  reason  in  Notre  Dame,  or  of  the  bitter  warfare  in  La  Vendee. 

At  this  time,  and  for  many  years  after,  the  feeble  desire  for  intelligence 
was  ministered  to  only  when  a  warship  or  a  trading  vessel  found  its  way 
into  the  harbor  of  San  Francisco,  through  the  entrance  which  later  had 
conferred  upon  it  by  Fremont  the  Greek  name  Chrysophylae, 
Intelli-  which  was  subsequently  translated  into  Golden  Gate  by  the 

Rarely  pioneers.     It  does  not  appear  from  the  numerous  descriptions 

Received  we  have  of  such  visits  that  great  eagerness  was  exhibited  for 

news ;  but  there  are  some  positive  statements  to  the  effect  that 
the  padres  were  disinclined  to  give  credence  to  any  stories  calculated  to 
upset  their  geographical  or  scientific  views. 

While  the  padres  and  the  rancheros  may  have  felt  that  indifferenc3 
concerning  the  outside  world  which  is  the  natural  product  of  isolation,  they 
manifested  a  lively  curiosity  regarding  their  own  affairs  and  found  frequent 
means  to  gratify  the  very  human  desire  for  news.  The  missions  of  Upper 
California,  which  were  located  at  suitable  intervals  between  San  Diego 
and  San  Francisco,  extended  their  hospitality  to  all  travelers,  and  the  latter 
usually  requited  the  attention  by  imparting  such  intelligence  as  they  pos- 
sessed concerning  the  doings  of  the  establishments  through  which  they  had 
passed. 

It  was  a  chance  sort  of  interchange  of  intelligence  and  was  never  re- 
duced to  a  system.     Thus  it  frequently  happened  that  there  were  long  inter- 
vals  of   complete   repose   for   the    padres,    who   escaped    the 
No  Desire         harassing  doubts  which  a  too  lively  desire  for  the  very  latest 
Latest  news,  and  the  disposition  to  minister  to  it,  brings  in  its  train. 

News  This  nearly  somnolent  condition  endured  in  California  down 

to  the  time  of  the  discovery  of  gold  at  Sutter's  mill,  a  fact 
which  may  be  inferred  from  the  authenticated  statement  that  the  people 
of  Monterey  did  not  hear  of  Marshall's  find  until  several  weeks  after  the 
inhabitants  of  Yerba  Buena  had  been  stirred  by  the  event. 

It  is  not  without  the  bounds  of  possibility  that  the  discovery  at  Sutter's 
mill  might  have  proved  as  unimportant  as  an  earlier  find  of  the  precious 
metal  in  Los  Angeles  county,  made  by  Francisco  Lopez -in  1841,  had  not 
the  men  who  made  their  way  to  California  in  1846  and  1847  brought  with 
them  the  means  as  well  as  the  news  disseminating  propensity.  Lopez'  dis- 
covery, unlike  that  of  ]\LTrshall's,  was  not  the  result  of  an  accident.  He  had 
heard  that  water- worn  pebbles  of  a  certain  sort  were  foimd  in  thp  vicinity 


75  PUBLISHED  IN  MONTEREY,   EVERY  SATURDAY  MORNING, 
Bt   COLTON   a    SEMPLE. 
FOR  FlUE   DOLLARS  PER   ANNUM  IN  ADVANCR. 


V 


This  ii  the  fir«l  jvip^r  e»fr  piihli«hcd  in  Cnliforni^.  nnfl 
itiough  i>juc<l  upon  a  unnl'  ihrft.  ia  intendtrl  il  simll  i  .in- 
Inin  iimier  llinl  will  be  reail  wilh  inlrn--i  Tli'-  pufinpUs 
utuLli  will  guvtiro  usia  cgadycuii^  it,  cau  be  tvl  fuiili  in 
■  frw  wordi 

<rt  nhall  milnloin  an  enlire  and  alter  •rarrnnre  of  til 
political  connt^sion  with  Meiicn.  «e  r"iiniii;tc  iii  on.  ■: 
ani  forever  all  feally  lo  her  ltw>,  til  obedience  lu  lier  nioii- 
duiri. 

NIC  •hnll  n.l>octtc  an  r.hli.in,,  of  ill  pn<t  pnliiicl  ofT^n- 
rtf  iiii.l  allonr  cvr;  man  llio  pmilect'  nf .  nieriii);  tln<  ih  w 
ora  of  fveni.  uncinbntravcd  I))  liijr  |>uil  he  iii'J  h«»o 
lakeii  in  pratKua  n  fniunona. 

»•  «h«ll  inaiiiluiii  ftordnm  ..f  apcich  nnd  ihe  preaa.  and 
Ihixe  f;<ciii  prioiiplca  of  xlicioHl  li<lcrBli"u,  wlnrh  allnui 
<<cr)>«iian  In  votrhip  God  according  tu  the  ditUlaa  of  hii 
own  c«n«ci>-nce. 

wj  «hn||  advra-aie  aurh  a  ajr«|pm  nf  puhlir  inalruclinn  aa 
aaiil  briiiB  ihr-  nixna  of  a  good  piaciieal  EDUCATION  to 
eierj  chil.l  la  Lalifumin 

wr  ahall  urg«  ih<>  iniiredial*  eaiaWiahmrnI  of  a  well  nr. 
gvnizcd  gnvrromrnl  and  a  uniTtraal  obed'cnra  to  it*  Imwi. 
»  a  ahall  •ncouraga  imigratino.  and  lako  aporial  paina  to 
point  nut  to  agricultural  imigranta  Ihoafl  af«tinn<  of  tin*c> 
cgpic<l  land-,  lahern  Ilia  feililily  of  Uw  >oil  will  nioal  am- 
piT  rtpaf  th,-  talMra  of  lh<^  hu.Undman 

"t  ahall  encournga  rtnniraiic  inanufaclurra  and  the  me- 
chanic arta  aa  anuicca  of  pfi%ale  wealth,  indtftduol  comfort 
anil  inditpcnaaUlc  to  iha  puhlir  proaporiiy. 

vit  >liall  uree  ihf  orgaDimtioii  of  interior  defences  aitf- 
Krirnt  lo  prnlirl  Ihe  property  of  cilizena  from  the  depreda- 
tionanflhe  odd  Indiana 


wi  ahall  adx<»c«le  n  icrritorwl  r^lntion  of  Californin  to 
Iha  Unitad  Slatet.  till  th-:  nuniUr  nf  inhabitniila  is  iiui.li 
that  ah*-  cun  t>«  admitted  a  ineinljcr  of  th;it  gli.iious  con- 
federacy. 

•WI  iIhII  auppo'l  lh»  pr'.fMt  mcnuurea  of  ll.r  eommnndor 
in  tlhpf  of  Iha  Americnn  ai|Miii|..rn  ..n  our  C"«-l,  ao  far  un 
they  cniidnce  to  the  pnhlia  <rni<qtiility,  ihe  orffnniznlinn  i.f 
a  Iroa  rrpre-entatifc  g'yvarniiieiit  and  our  al!i.>ii(x  with  the 
Uniic.l  S::itei. 

nr.  all  iD  adaoealO  the  li.no-t  rale  oriliilies  on  foreign 
import",  anil  Ijvru  an  ctciiiption  of  the  necea^nries  of  life, 
oeii  Iron,  thu-e  dull'.. 

wr  ahull  go  for  Cali/ornia—for  til  tier  Inlernlt.  jonVi/, 
CM'i/ oar/ rf/i:.'-ion!— eiieoumginff  ftrery  thing  tliil  proinottS 
liia-c,  rcai'llng  fVeiy  thing  ihat  can  do  llicm  linnn 

Tina  preal  >l.iill  be  frer  ni.d  in.l^p^ndenl  :  linawe.ll.y 
p-<ni-t  and  unini  i.rn.led  by  p-rty.  Tin-  u«ci.f  it«  cliinun 
ahull  be  ilenicd  'o  ,inne,  who  hnve  aupgcatioiis  lo  nmke 
prnmutive  nf  the  public  weulth. 

wr  ahull  Uy  before  niir  readers  the  freihcsl  tlonie>lic  in- 
lelhgcnre  and   tha  t:arli--t  foreign  noita. 

Thc  C>Lirai<M«N  hiia  been  pnblfhed  upwarila  of  ;it 
mnnlha,  contrary  to  our  expeclattuns,  it  has  about  pnid  iia 
o«n  eipen-ea.  *» 

we  are  daily  eit)ecling  our  new  matariaU,  nheii  tho 
paper  will  lie  eiilirgt-d  to  about  double  ita  preseiU  >tfe.  It 
i«  to  bo  huped  that  the  increasing  pitpulnlinn,  the  e<it3brn><- 
mrnl  of  thc  govarniBent  at  .Mnnlery  will  increase  our  atib- 
arriptiiin  liai,  ao  a>  In  justify  the  eiira  expense  of  enlarging 
the  paper. 

Out  tlinnks  arc  tcndrred  lo  nor  patrons  nml  frienda  f-r 
paM  favnura  and  we  hnpetliat  mir  future  elfotts  will  meet 
with  n  continuance  nf  thrir  cnnfiilencc. 


SUBSCRIBERS  NAMES. 


?lace  of  residence. 


PROSPECTUS  OF  FIRST  PAPER   PUBLISHED  IN  CALIFORNIA 


REV.   WALTER  COLTON 
Editor  of  first  paper  published  in  California. 


The  Period  Before  the  Awakening 


of  gold  and  while  pulling  up  wild  onions  at  San  Francisquito,  about  tliirty- 
five  miles  north  of  Los  Angeles,  he  noted  some  clinging  to  the  roots  which 
appeared  to  answer  the  description.  He  at  once  instituted  a  search  and 
was  rewarded  by  finding  about  eighteen  ounces  of  the  precious  metal,  which 
was  sent  to  the  Mint  at  riiiladelphia,  where  it  was  found  to  be  worth  $344. 

The  discovery,  although  no  attempt  was  made  to  keep  it  secret,  pro- 
duced only  a  ripple  of  excitement,  and  was  not  followed  as  in  the  case  of 
the  find  at  Sutter's  mill  by  a  rush  which  took  on  world-wide  proportions. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  the  people  in  the  village  of  Yerba  Buena  in  1841  ever 
heard  of  Lopez'  find.  At  that  time  the  place  numbered  thirty  families, 
clustered  in  the  neighborhood  of  Jacob  Primer  Leese's  store,  which  he  had 
started  in  1836.  This  establishment  occupied  a  hundred  vara  lot  about 
250  feet  from  the  beach  of  the  cove  which  then  reached  what  is  now  Mont- 
gomery street.  The  location  chosen  by  Leese  remained  the  center  of  such 
activity  as  Yerba  Buena  developed  down  to  the  time  of  the  American  occu- 
pation and  during  several  years  afterward. 

Leese  had  associated  with  him  in  business  Nathan  Spear  and  William 
Sturgis  Hinckley.  The  latter  arrived  in  California  in  1840  and  in  1844  he 
Avas  elected  Alcalde  of  Yerba  Buena,  the  first  to  bear  that  title  in  what  was 
to  be  the  future  metropolis  of  the  Pacific  Coast.  During 
^*"  .  ,  his  incumbency,  Hinckley  executed  what  seems  to  have  been 
Pjyst  the  first  civic  improvement  in  California,  and,  perhaps,  on 

Improvement  the  whole  Pacific  Coast.  The  locality  now  bounded  by 
Montgomery,  Washington,  Kearny  and  Jackson  streets  at  that 
time  was  covered  with  a  lagoon  of  salt  water  which  rose  and  fell  with 
the  tide  of  the  bay.  Over  this  obstruction  Hinckley  caused  to  be  con- 
structed a  rude  but  serviceable  bridge,  which  obviated  the  necessity  for  those 
coming  from  North  Beach  of  making  a  long  detour  when  they  desired  to 
reach  the  store.  The  construction  was  of  the  simplest  character,  but  any- 
thing in  the  nature  of  a  public  convenience  was  so  great  a  curiosity  that 
the  rancheros  of  the  surrounding  country  traveled  miles  to  see  the  marvel. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  desire  for  information  should  have  been 
at  a  low  ebb  in  such  a  community.  The  newspaper  was  by  no  means  a 
stranger  to  peoples  in  other  regions  where  contact  with  the  world  was  closer. 
It  had  been  a  growing  factor  in  the  development  of  civilization  in  Europe 
from  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  had  attained  to  considerable 
importance  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard  of  the  United  States  where  mental 
expansion  and  material  progress  kept  pace.  But  the  need  for  newspapers 
or  books  was  not  felt  throughout  the  vast  area  in  which  the  spiritually 
zealous  padres  and  the  sluggish  Spaniard  and  his  descendants  dominated. 

Taking  Yerba  Buena  as  an  exemplar  of  conditions,  it  is  not  difficult 
to  comprehend  why  the  need  of  a  newspaper  or  the  desire  for  books  was 
never  felt.  Its  commerce,  if  so  sonorous  an  appellation  may  be  applied  to 
trading  operations  so  insignificant,  was  confined  to  the  occa- 
J^®, .  sional  visits  of  Yankee  skippers  who  brought  miscellaneous 

Hlbit"^  cargoes,  which  they  exchanged  for  the  hides  and  tallow  de- 

Unformed  rived  from  the  great  herds  of  cattle  which  roamed  over  the 
country  surrounding  the  missions.  The  padres  had  no  incli- 
nation for  the  sea  and  utterly  neglected  boat  building.  As  a  consequence, 
the  navigation  of  the  bav  was  monopolized  for  many  years  by  a  single 
schooner'sailed  by  a  Captain  Eichardson,  who,  as  early  as  1822,  contracted 


Journalism  in  California 


with  the  heads  of  the  missions  to  gather  their  products  at  various  places 
and  assembled  them  for  reshipment  in  the  cove  of  Yerba  Buena. 

The  marine  inactivity  of  the  period  was  fully  matched  by  the  general 
industrial  languor.  Outside  of  the  missions  there  was  no  energy  at  all, 
and  within  their  precincts  it  seemed  to  be  directed  to  the  solution  of  the 
preservation  of  existence  in  its  simplest  form.  There  was  no 
^°   g  flourishing  agriculture.     An  examination  of  the  inventories 

for  the  of  the  most  prominent  establishments  of  the  padres  discloses 

Sea  that  their  products,  considering  the  number  of  laborers  avail- 

able, were  insignificant  as  to  quantity  and  woefully  deficient 
in  variety.  Manufacturing,  as  we  understand  it,  was  absolutely  unknown. 
The  missions,  and  the  soldiers  and  natives  living  near  them,  were  entirely 
dependent  upon  outsiders  for  the  commonest  kind  of  utensils,  and  such 
luxuries  as  were  consumed  were  obtained  by  exchanging  hides  and  tallow  for 
them,  the  skippers  who  engaged  in  the  trade  usually,  if  not  invariably, 
getting  the  best  of  the  bargain. 

If  it  were  desirable  to  heighten  the  lights  in  this  picture  of  apathy 
toward  material  progress,  it  might  be  done  by  stating  that  until  Stephen 
Smith  in  1843  started  the  first  sawmill  in  California,  the  people  around  the 
bay  of  San  Francisco  had  been  dependent  for  lumber  upon  an  Irishman 
named  David  Hill,  who  operated  a  whipsaw  as  early  as  1822,  and  apparently 
had  no  trouble  in  supplying  the  demand,  which  was  confined  to  such  simple 
things  as  stoutly-constructed  doors  and  rude  window  frames  for  the  adobe 
houses,  which  were  guiltless  of  such  luxuries  as  board  floors,  and  whose 
furniture  was  in  keeping  with  the  general  style  of  construction. 

It  is  not  in  such  a  community  that  one  looks  for  journalistic  develop- 
ment, and  the  fact  that  it  is  never  found  under  the  conditions  described  may 
seem  to  negative  the  assumption  that  newspapers  and  books  were  as  impor- 
tant a  factor  in  bringing  about  the  great  metamorphosis  which  followed  the 
occupation  of  California  by  the  Americans  as  some  are  disposed  to  claim. 
But  there  are  many  facts  to  support  the  belief  that  those  who  made  their 
way  into  the  new  territory  in  the  days  immediately  following  the  settlement 
of  our  difficulties  with  Mexico  would  not  have  made  the  material  progress 
since  recorded  had  they  not  been  an  inquisitive  and  a  reading  people. 

It  is  not  without  significance  that  the  awakening  of  Yerba  Buena  did 
not  occur  until  the  advent  of  the  printing  press.  From  the  day  when  Leese 
built  his  store  on  the  corner  of  Clay  and  Dupont  streets  in  1836,  until  the 
arrival  of  the  Mormon  colony  in  the  Brooklyn  on  July  31, 
Awakenine  of  l*^"^^'  ^^^^  village  retained  all  the  peculiarities  of  a  poverty- 
Yerba  stricken  settlement  of  the  Spanish-American  type.     If  there 

Buena  were  any  other  improvements  than  the  bridging  of  the  slough 

by  Hinckley  the  records  are  silent  concerning  them.  But 
from  that  time  forward  changes  began  to  occur  indicative  of  advancement, 
and  it  is  impossible  to  dissociate  them  from  the  fact  that  a  part  of  the 
Brooklyn's  cargo  was  a  press  and  a  font  of  type,  and  that  the  238  colonists 
aboard  that  vessel  and  others  who  found  their  way  to  the  little  town,  brought 
Avith  them  books;  more,  one  careful  writer  tells  us,  than  could  be  found  at 
the  time  in  all  the  rest  of  the  territory  put  together. 

The  press  brought  by  the  Mormons  was  not  the  first  brought  to  Cali- 
fornia, nor  did  the  California  Star,  issued  under  the  auspices  of  the  colony, 
which  was  headed  by  Samuel  Brannan,  afterward  conspicuous  in  the  up- 


SAMUEL  BRANNAN 
Publisher  of  California  Star  of  San  Francisco. 


The  Period  Before  the  Awakening 


buildin,"?  of  San  Francisco,  enjoy  the  distinction  of  being  the  pioneer  pub- 
lication.    That  honor  is  claimed  by  The  Californian,  a  one-page  sheet  which 

made  its  first  appearance  in  Monterey  on  August  15,  1846, 
F^"  SCO's  nearly  six  months  earlier  than  the  issuance  of  the  California 
YiTst  Star.     Col  ton  and  Semple  were  the  publishers  and  editors  of 

Press  the  Monterey  publication,  which  was  a  very  modest  paper, 

indeed,  being  printed  on  one  side  of  a  single  sheet  121/2 
by  8%  inches.  This  initial  issue  was  in  the  nature  of  an  announcement, 
the  principal  feature  of  which  was  a  ringing  editorial  on  the  subject  of  the 
American  annexation  of  California  in  which  fealty  to  ^lexico  and  her  laws 
was  renounced  once  and  forever.  It  was  characteristic  of  the  new-born 
spirit  which  synchronized  with  the  advent  of  The  Californian,  that  the  editor 
should  have  advocated  public  instruction,  the  establishment  of  stable  and 
well  organized  government,  and  the  encouragement  of  immigration  and  of 
domestic  manufactures. 

There  certainly  was  need  for  all  the  changes  which  the  editor  demanded. 
Such  a  thing  as  public  instruction  was  wholly  unknown  in  Califcmia  :  im- 
migration had  been  persistently  discouraged  and  even  prohibited  by  law; 

as  already  stated,  the  natives  were  absolutely  dependent  on 
"^^^  outsiders  for  such  manufactured  articles  as  the  conduct  of 

Qf  their  simple  life  demanded,  and,  after  the  upheaval  in  Mexico 

Change  which  resulted  in  the  abrogation  of  Spanish  rule,  the  province 

was  absolutely  neglected  by  the  central  government  of  the 
new  republic,  which  left  the  provincials  to  shift  for  themselves,  scarcely 
taking  the  trouble  to  provide  them  with  a  Governor.  The  announcement 
contained  also  a  recommendation  that  a  force  be  organized  for  the  purpose 
of  "defense  against  wild  Indians,"  which  appears  to  have  been  inspired  by  a 
groundless  fear,  as  the  aborigines  gave  little  or  no  trouble  during  many 
years  following  the  occupation.  Those  in  the  neighborhood  of  Monterey 
never  were  a  cause  of  apprehension  to  the  whites. 

The  Californian  was  issued  weekly  on  Saturdays,  and  the  subscription 
price  was  $5  a  year,  payable  in  advance.  Its  editor  and  publisher  evidently 
did  not  contemplate  making  a  fortune  through  its  publication,  for  in  a 

subsequent  issue  the  reader  was  informed  that:  "The  Cali- 
Cahfornia's  fornian  has  been  published  upward  of  six  months,  and,  con- 
"News-  trary  to  our  expectations,  it  has  about  paid  its  own  expenses." 

paper"  It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  it  was  able  to  perform  the 

latter  feat,  for  at  best  it  was  nothing  but  a  circular,  the  prin- 
cipal purpose  of  which  seemed  to  be  the  dissemination  of  the  orders  of 
Commodore  E.  F.  Stockton,  commander  of  the  American  forces  in  Cali- 
fornia. '  These  orders  were  printed  in  English  and  Spanish,  and  probably 
were  the  most  interesting  news  California  afforded  at  the  time.  The  type 
used  in  printing  the  Californian  was  found  in  the  cloisters  of  one  of  the 
missions,  and  was  deficient  in  capital  Ws,  and  the  font  was  otherwise 
defective.  That  the  publishers  labored  under  great  difficulties  in  the  matter 
of  the  presentation  of  news  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  a  proclama- 
tion of  Stockton,  announcing  the  American  occupation,  which  was  dated 
at  "Cuidad  de  los  Angeles. ""August  IT.  1846,"  was  printed  in  an  extra 
of  September  oth  following.  On  the  same  date  a  notice  that  a  general  civil 
election  would  be  held  on  September  loth  appeared.  It  was  dated  at  Los 
Angeles  on  the  ^^d  of  the  preceding  month.     If  expedition  was  used  by 


6     '  Journalism  in  California 


Messrs.  Col  ton  and  Seniple  in  producing  their  extra  two  weeks  were  prob- 
ably occupied  in  transmitting  the  copy  from  Los  Angeles  to  Monterey, 
which  indicates  that  the  American  courier  had  not  succeeded  in  greatly 
improving  upon  the  leisurely  habits  of  the  natives. 

The  Californian,  despite  the  boast  that  it  had  made  ends  meet  during 
the  first  six  months  of  its  existence,  moved  from  Monterey  to  Yerba  Buena 
on  the  22d  of  May,  1847,  and  issued  the  first  number  of  "its  second  volume 
from  that  place,  Robert  Semple  being  the  sole  publisher. 
Francisco's  Meanwhile,  however,  the  Brooklyn  with  its  Mormon  contin- 
First  gent  had   arrived,   and   the  printing  plant   brought   by  the 

Paper  colonists  was  utilized  to  get  out  a  weekly  paper  which  the 

publisher,  Samuel  Brannan,  named  the  California  Star.  The 
first  number  appeared  on  January  7,  1847.  It  was  a  small  sheet  of  four 
pages,  the  type  on  each  page  occupying  a  space  of  12x15  inches.  It  was 
much  better  printed  than  the  Californian,  and  its  editor,  E.  P.  Jones, 
exhibited  some  taste  in  the  arrangement  of  the  matter.  An  announcement 
that  it  would  carefully  eschew  sectarian  discussion  was  something  in  the 
nature  of  an  intimation  to  the  settlers  of  Yerba  Buena  that  Brannan,  who 
had  come  into  collision  with  the  Mormon  colonists,  intended  to  withdraw 
from  the  organization,  which  he  did  subsequently. 

The  condition  of  affairs  in  Yerba  Buena  during  the  first  year  after 
the  occupation  was  the  reverse  of  prosperous.  The  war  had  effectually 
suspended  the  little  business  enterprise  formerly  displayed,  and  immigration 
j^^^  was  almost  at  a  standstill.     The  outlook  was  very  gloomy, 

a,  °  but  the  few  Americans  who  had  found  their  way  to  the  port 

Prosperous  on  the  Pacific  were  not  easily  discouraged.  They  believed 
Community  •  that  the  future  Avould  bring  prosperity  because  they  had  un- 
bounded faith  in  the  resources  of  California.  Unlike  the 
prior  occupants  of  the  land,  they  were  not  disposed  to  adopt  the  Manana 
habit.  The  fact  that  they  had  an  instrument  at  hand  which  would  help 
them  to  forward  their  designs  probably  accounts  for  their  not  imitating  the 
example  of  other  Europeans  and  Americans  who  had  penetrated  California 
before  the  occupation.  That  instrument  was  the  newspaper  press.  They 
used  the  California  Star  to  disseminate  the  information  which  they  believed 
would  prove  sufficiently  alluring  to  bring  plenty  of  desirable  settlers  to  the 
new  territory.  A  committee  was  formed  and  itwas  resolved  to  have  printed 
a  circular  which  was  to  set  forth  in  detail  the  advantages  which  the  soil  and 
climate  of  California  offered  to  the  husbandman,  grazier  and  artisan.  The 
article  was  prepared  by  Dr.  Victor  J.  Fourgead,  who  entitled  it,  "The 
Prospects  of  California."  It  was  printed  in  an  extra  number  of  the  Cali- 
fornia Star  dated  April  1,  1848,  and  a  courier  was  dispatched  on  the  day 
of  its  issue  with  2000  copies,  which  he  contracted  to  deliver  in  Missouri 
in  sixty  days,  and  to  spread  the  document  among  the  people  of  that  State. 

This  first  boost  edition  of  a  California  newspaper  barely  mentioned 
the  rumored  discovery  of  gold  and  treated  it  as  a  matter  of  no  importance. 
Marshall's  find  at  Sutter's  mill  had  been  made  in  the  previous  January,  but 
it  appears  to  have  made  no  serious  impression  on  the  boosters,  who  were  con- 
vinced that  the  future  of  California  depended  upon  its  grazing  and  agricul- 
tural possibilities.  The  authors  of  the  circular  were  particularly  desirous 
of  attracting  Missourians,  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  they  desired  that  they 
should  belong  to  the  class  whose  sympathies  could  be  depended  upon  when 


THE   WASHINGTON    PKKSS   ON    WHICH    SAN    FKANCISCO'S    FIKST 
PAPER  WAS  PRINTED 


•■'  -JMm      wmdMi  t 


MONUMENT  TO  FATHER  JUNIPERO  SERKA  IN  GOLDEN  GATE  PARK 


The  Period  Before  the  Awakening 


A 

California 

Star 

Extra 


the  Territory  had  acquired  a  sufficient  population  to  promote  its  admission 
to  the  Union  as  a  slave  State.     Their  intentions  and  calculations,  however, 
availed  nothing.     The  circular  of  April  1st  was  to  have  been 
^^^^'.  ,  followed  by  another  on  June  1st,  but  before  the  arrival  of  the 

YiTst  ^^^^  ^^'t  for  the  appearance  of  the  second  extra  of  the  Cali- 

Booster  fornia  Star,  nearly  everybody  connected  with  the  i)aper  had 

gone  to  the  mines,  and  in  the  excitement  which  attended  the 
rush  to  the  new  diggings  it  was  lost  sight  of  forever  by  its  projectors,  whose 
thoughts  were  turned  into  another  channel. 

When  the  California  Star  extra  was  published  on  the  1st  of  April, 
1848,  Yerba  Buena  had  ceased  to  be  the  name  of  the  village  on  the  cove 
which  had  so  many  years  served  as  a  safe  harbor  for  the  few  cra'ft  visiting 
the  Coast.  On  the  30th  of  January,  1847,  Washington  A. 
Bartlett,  the  first  American  Alcalde,  in  order  to  anticipate 
the  expected  appropriation  of  the  name  of  St.  Francis  by 
Mariano  0.  Yallejo  and  Thomas  0.  Larkin,  who  contemplated 
the  creation  of  a  port  and  city  in  the  locality  of  Benicia,  re- 
quired that  all  documents  issued  in  the  village  should  be  dated  San  Fran- 
cisco, which  was  the  designation  applied  to  the  place  on  the  official  map. 
The  projectors  of  the  rival  city  reluctantly  yielded  and  gave  it  one  of  the 
Christian  names  borne  by  the  wife  of  M.  G.  Vallejo.  In  the  same  year 
that  Bartlett  fixed  the  name  which  the  erstwhile  Yerba  Buena  now  bears, 
the  exports  of  the  premier  port  of  the  Pacific  were  valued  at  $40,597.53 
and  the  imports  at  $53, 581). 73.  Six  square-rigged  vessels  entered  the  bay 
during  the  year  and  the  population  of  San  Francisco  fell  forty-one  shor^ 
of  500.  The  manners  of  the  village  had  changed  somewhat,  but  the  Ameri- 
canization was  not  complete.  Some  of  the  native  habits  had  been  easily 
accepted  by  the  newcomers.  The  taste  for  the  card  game  known  as  monte 
was  promptly  acquired,  and  more  rebosas  were  seen  on  the  "Street  of  the 
Foundation,"  the  high-sounding  name  given  to  the  one  thoroughfare  of  the 
place  when  Yerba  Buena  was  first  laid  out,  than  the  garb  commonly  worn 
by  women  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard.  But  the  change  of  name  did  not 
greatly  increase  the  activity  of  the  place.  San  Francisco  was  nearly  as  dull 
as  Yerba  Buena  had  been,  and  remained  ro  until  Marshall's  discovery 
stirred  up  the  inhabitants,  and  caused  the  rush  from  all  quarters  of  the 
globe,  which  soon  turned  the  village  into  a  city  and  in  an  incredibly  brief 
space  of  time  converted  it  into  the  liveliest  spot  on  the  footstool. 


CHAPTER  II 

NEWSPAPER    PRESS   OF   SAN   FRANCISCO   IN   THE 
EARLY  FIFTIES. 


Changes  in  Journalistic  Methods — Apparent  Innovations  Often  Only  Exaggerations — 
A  Six-Column  Description  of  California  Resources  in  1848 — Early  Papers  Had 
Few  News  P''acilities— Pioneer  and  Eastern  Contemporary  Period  Journalism 
Compared— First  Telegraph  Line  in  1852 — Completion  of  Line  Between  Han 
Franeifrco  and  Missouri  River — News  by  Pacific  Mail  Steamers — Files  of  Eastern 
Papers  a  Great  Source  of  News — The  Pony  Express  and  the  Newspapers — Re- 
porting During  the  Fifties — The  First  Vigilance  Committee — Avoi<lance  of  Men- 
tion of  Crime  Did  Not  Prevent  Its  Becoming  Rampant — Twelve  Dailies  in  San 
Francisco  in  1851 — Denunciations  of  Municipal  Corruption- — "Affairs  of  Honor" 
Common  During  the  Fifties — The  Newspaper  Graveyard  of  Early  Days — The 
Birth  of  the  Alta — San  Francisco 's  First  Newspaper  Merger- — The  Founding 
of  the  Bulletin — No  Overset  in  Early  Day  Composition  Rooms. 

WRITER  on  journalism  remarked  recently  that  "the 
newspaper  of  today  is  vastly  different  from  that  pub- 
lished twenty  years  ago."  No  one  who  has  paid  atten- 
tion to  the  subject  will  challenge  the  accuracy  of  the 
observation,  but  even  the  student  at  times  is  puzzled 
when  he  makes  the  effort  to  describe  the  nature  of  the 
change.  If  he  confines  his  study  to  externals  he  will 
have  no  difficulty  in  detecting  peculiarities  of  the 
make-up  of  the  paper  of  1915  which  distinguish  it  from  the  journal  of 
1865,  but  if  he  digs  deeply  he  will  find  that  many  obtrusive  features  of  the 
present-day  newspaper  are  merely  exaggerations  of  earlier  methods  empha- 
sized by  the  use  of  big  type.  San  Francisco  journalism  furnishes  an 
excellent  illustration  of  the  correctness  of  this  assumption.  During  the 
nearly  seventy  years  since  the  publication  of  the  first  newspaper  in  Cali- 
fornia there  have  been  many  changes  in  style  and  in  the  methods  of  con- 
ducting public  journals.  If  an  inhabitant  of  Mars  withotit  any  previous 
knowledge  of  what  was  occurring  on  this  planet  should  drop  into  San  Fran- 
cisco on  any  Sunday  and  see  an  edition  of  one  of  the  morning  papers  and 
be  told  that  it  had  been  evolved  in  the  course  of  sixty-nine  years  from  the 
little  sheet  printed  on  the  press  brought  to  California  on  the  Brooklyn  in 
1846,  a  copy  of  which  may  be  seen  in  the  Memorial  Museum  in  Golden 
Gate  Park,  he  would  certainly  be  astonished,  if  ]\Iartians  are  capable  of 
surrendering  to  such  an  emotion.  He  might  not  be  surprised  at  the  size 
of  a  modern  Sunday  edition,  being  accustomed  to  digging  canals  several 
miles  in  width  and  hundreds  of  miles  in  length,  but  it  is  more  than  likely 
that  he  would  be  a  trifle  incredulous  if  told  that  it  was  a  natural  develop- 


Newspaper  Press  in  the  Early  Fifties 


Differences 
in 


mcnt  from  the  sober  four-pago,  12x15,  production  which  ai)pcare(l  weekly 
on  Saturdays  in  the  village  of  Yerba  Buena. 

But  the  plain  little  sheet,  and  its  immediate  successors  which  rapidly 
sprang  into  existence  after  the  discovery  of  gold  at  Sutter's  mill,  had  many 
of  the  characteristics  possessed  by  the  overgrown  modern  Sunday  paper.     A 

careful  comparison  of  an  issue  of  any  of  the  more  ambitious  of 

the  daily  papers  published  in  San  Francisco  in  the  early  fifties 
Degree  0^  the  nineteenth  century  will  disclose  to  the  discriminating 

Only  that  what  appear  to  be  difl'erences  are  oftener  than  otherwise 

those  of  degi'ce  or  size  rather  than  fundamental  changes.  In 
short,  the  News,  the  Heralds,  the  Couriers,  the  Balances,  the  Times,  the 
Wild  Wests,  the  Chronicles,  the  Bulletins,  the  Suns  and  the  other  dailies 
of  pioneer  days  were  edited  and  published  for  the  same  purposes  as  the 
modern  newspaper.  Those  who  made  them  sought  to  make  their  publica- 
tions interesting  to  their  readers,  and  the  methods  of  doing  so  were  as 
various  as  the  number  of  directing  minds  engaged  in  their  production;  and 
the  same  thing  may  be  said  of  the  newspapers  of  today.  In  the  preceding 
chai^ter  it  was  shown  that  the  California  Star  as  early  as  April  1,  1848, 
engaged  in  a  work  which  a  consensus  of  opinion  approves  and  applauds  as 
one  of  the  most  important  functions  of  a  newspaper,  namely,  the  dissemina- 
tion of  intelligence  respecting  the  possibilities  and  capabilities  of  the 
region  in  which  it  is  published.  It  is  sometimes  assumed  that  this  is  a 
feature  peculiar  to  the  journalism  of  a  new  country,  but  a  slight  accpiaint- 
ance  with  the  methods  of  metropolitan  dailies  of  the  first  class  makes  one 
familiar  with  the  fact  that  their  editors  are  alive  to  the  desirability,  if  not 
the  necessity,  of  expatiating  upon  the  advantages  of  the  locality  and  the 
country  in  which  they  are  published.  Even  the  London  Times  does  not 
disdain  to  write  up  in  detail  the  industries  of  Great  Britain,  and  to  ex- 
patiate on  the  greatness  of  the  port  of  London  ;  and,  in  doing  so,  it  is  merely 
practicing  on  an  extended  scale  what  the  early  California  paper  did  meas- 
urably well  when  it  printed  its  six-column  description  of  "The  Prospects  of 
California." 

That  the  early  papers  of  San  Francisco  w^ere  weak  on  the  news  side 
was  due  more  to  absence  of  facilities  for  getting  news  than  to  lack  of  appre- 
ciation of  the  desirability  of  furnishing  the  latest  intelligence  as  promptly 

as  possible.  This  deficiency  was  soon  repaired,  and  by  the 
^^^  exertion  of  a  greater  degree  of  energy  than  was  displayed  by 

Hews  ^'le  publishers  of  newspapers  on  the  Eastern  seaboard,  who 

Side  were    content    to    endure    conditions    militating   against   the 

speedy  publication  of  news  for  a  much  longer  period  than 
their  brethren  in  the  new  and  ambitious  city  on  the  bay  of  San  Francisco. 
There  were  so-called  newspapers  in  New  England  and  the  other  colonies 
in  the  closing  years  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  in  the  first  year  of  the 
Revolution  Philadelphia  boasted  as  many  as  eight.  After  the  country  had 
secured  its  independence,  the  number  greatly  increased,  but  it  was  not  until 
sometime  between  the  years  1835  and  18*40  that  the  New  York  papers 
started  "pony  expresses,"  and  similar  expedients  for  the  purpose  of  procur- 
ing intelligence  as  speedily  as  possible  from  Washington,  which  was  then 
as  important  a  news  center  as  it  is  at  present.  The  papers  in  San  Francisco 
did  not  allow  a  half  century  and  more  to  elapse  before  they  sought  to 
close  the  gap  which  put  them  out  of  touch  with  the  rest  of  the  Fnion.     As 

3 


10  Journalism  in  California 


early  as  1853  an  ordinance  was  passed  granting  tiie  right  of  way  to  the 
California  Telegraph  Company  to  construct  a  line  between  San  Francisco, 
San  Jose  and  other  points  in  the  interior,  but  it  was  late  in  the  following 
year  before  it  was  completed.  In  September,  1853,  a  short  line  was  con- 
structed connecting  San  Francisco  with  Point  Lobos,  which  was  utilized 
for  the  purpose  of  giving  information  about  shipping  movements,  intel- 
ligence of  that  sort  prior  to  the  introduction  of  the  telegraph  being  signaled 
from  the  elevation  which  commemorates  the  practice  by  retaining  the  name 
"Telegraph  Hill"  bestowed  by  the  pioneers.  A  close  inspection  does  not 
reveal  a  liberal  use  of  the  first  California  telegraph  by  the  press  of  the  citv, 
nor,  indeed,  was  telegraphic  news  much  in  evidence  before  the  completion 
of  the  line  between  the  ]\Iissouri  and  San  Francisco,  which  occurred  October 
1,  1861. 

There  was  great  rivalry  during  the  period  prior  to  the  advent  of  the 
Pony  Express  and  the  Overland  Stage  Line  in  the  matter  of  presenting 
news  received  by  steamer  from  the  x4.tlantic  states.     At  the  close  of  1853 
there  were  twelve  daily  papers  published  in  San  Francisco. 
News  There  may  have  btjen  some  differences  of  opinion  among  their 

^y  editors  respecting  the  interest  and  the  importance  of  other 

Steamer  news,  but  they  were  perfectly  agreed  that  the  happenings  in 

the  old  home  hold  the  uppermost  place  in  the  estimation  of 
their  readers  and  they  governed  themselves  accordingly.  All  sorts  of  de- 
vices were  resorted  to  by  the  more  energetic  publishers  to  get  out  editions  at 
the  earliest  possible  moment.  Batches  of  carefully  condensed  items  were 
prepared  by  Eastern  correspondents  which  were  promptly  secured  on  the 
arrival  of  the  steamer  by  which  they  were  dispatched,  and  with  equal 
promptitude  put  into  type  and  rushed  on  the  street,  where  they  were  eagerly 
bought  by  expectant  readers.  On  the  following  day  the  more  important 
phases  were  dealt  with  at  greater  length,  but  there  was  never  any  conspicu- 
ous indulgence  in  the  propensity  to  expand,  the  modest  amount  of  space  at 
the  command  of  the  editor  enforcing  a  brevity  which  may  have  satisfied  the 
lovers  of  concise  expression,  but  did  not  lend  itself  to  the  clearing  up  of  ob- 
scurities which  required  detail  to  make  them  comprehensible. 

The  principal  news  source  of  the  press  throughout  the  fifties  were  the 
files  of  Eastern  papers  brought  by  the  steamers.    The  Overland  Stage  Line, 
which  connected  San  Francisco  and   St.  Louis,  was  started  in  1858,  but 
the  best  time  made  between   the  two  cities  was  twenty-one 
Overland  days,  which  did  not  result  in  the  gain  of  any  time,  although 

Stage  it  greatly  improved  mail  facilities,  there  being  eight  arrivals 

■^^"®  montlily  by  stage  against  two  by  steamer.     The  most  enter- 

prising and  spectacular  mode  of  securing  expedition  in  the 
transmission  of  intelligence  was  that  adopted  about  the  time  that  the  Over- 
land Stage  service  was  perfected.  It  was  known  as  the  Pony  Express  and 
probably  derived  its  name  from  the  news  service  instituted  by  the  New  York 
papers  some  years  earlier.  It  was  regarded  as  a  marvelous  bit  of  enterprise 
and  deservedly  so,  for  those  employed  in  the  carrying  of  the  strictly  limited 
number  of  letters  were  exposed  to  great  danger  and  hardships,  the  region 
through  which  they  rode  being  infested  with  savage  Indians. 

The  Pony  Express,  the  first  mail  of  which  reached  Sacramento  on 
the  13th  of  April,  1858,  employed  nearly  three  hundred  persons,  eighty 
of  them  being  riders  whose  average  performance  was  about  seventy-five 


Newspaper  Press  in  the    Early  Fifties  11 

miles;  but  there  is  a  record  of  one  who  rode  SSI  miles  without  stopping 
except  for  meals  and  to  change  horses  at  stations.     The  express  carried  two 

mails  a  week,  and  the  charge  for  a  letter,  which  was  limited 
Famous  *°  ^^^®.  "^^'^^SJ^t  °^"  ^""^"^  ^^  ounce,  was  $5.     This  resulted  in  the 

Pony  adoption  of  cipher  codes  which  were  prepared  on  tissue  paper. 

Express  When  translated  they  provided  the  editor  with  an  abundance 

of  copy,  which  he  often  was  enabled  to  supplonient  with  in- 
formation derived  from  private  letters  received  by  officials  and  merchants. 
Prior  to  the  starting  of  the  Pony  Express  the  newspapers  had  succeeded  in 
having  a  wire  run  from  San  Francisco  to  Stockton,  and  thence  through 
the  San  Joaquin  valley  and  over  the  Tehachapi  mountains  to  Los  Angeles, 
the  idea  being  to  anticipate  the  arrival  of  the  stage  in  San  Francisco,  but 
this  bit  of  enterprise  was  without  substantial  results  when  the  riders  got 
into  full  operation,  and  was  of  little  value  for  news  collecting  purposes,  as 
the  southern  part  of  the  State  was  absolutely  dormant  at  that  period.  The 
files  of  the  San  Francisco  papers  during  the  years  in  which  the  Pony 
Express  was  in  operation  contain  many  stories  of  hair-breadth  escapes 
of  the  riders  and  some  that  were  tragic;  but  they  were  all  told  with  that 
succinctness  which  was  a  characteristic  of  newspaper  writing  at  the  time. 
This  brevity  has  been  much  discussed  by  the  more  diffuse  narrators  of  a 
later  period,  some  of  whom  Avere  disposed  to  attribute  it  to  a  keener 
appreciation  of  the  merits  of  conciseness  than  they  possessed,  but  their 
opinion  seems  to  be  contradicted  by  the  fact  that  a  great  deal  of  space  was 
consumed  day  after  day  in  the  columns  devoted  to  comment  by  matter 
whose  treatment  did  not  suggest  a  desire  to  go  straight  to  the  point,  or  the 
avoidance  of  unnecessary  words. 

If  the  presentation  of  the  news  during  the  first  decade  after  the  dis- 
covery of  gold  presented  any  feature  calculated  to  distinguish  it  from  the 
matter  printed  in  the  papers  of  small  towns  of  the  present  day  it  is  not 

easily  discovered  by  the  careful  investigator.  This  suggests 
Features  i^^.^^.  ^j-^g  ^^^-^^  ^^  reporting  during  the  fifties  was  dictated  by 

Early  tbe  limitations  of  the  joumals  for  which  the  news  was  pre- 

Papers  pared  rather  than  by  the  desire  to  save  the  reader  the  trouble 

of  wading  through  long  accounts  of  happenings.  That  de- 
tails would  have  been  acceptable  if  they  had  been  presented  is  fairly 
indicated  by  the  fact  that  the  more  extended  descriptions  of  events  which 
appeared  in  the  Eastern  papers  were  eagerly  perused  by  those  who  sub- 
scribed for  them,  and  by  the  tacit  approbation  of  the  same  shown  by  the 
editors  of  San  Francisco  papers,  wlio  frequently  copied  long  stories  of 
occurrences  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard  which  would  have  been  disposed  of 
with  a  brief  paragraph  had  they  happened  nearer  home. 

A  specimen  paper  of  1850,  if  closely  examined,  reveals  some  of  the 
limitations.     The  Pacific  Xews  of  May  15th  of  that  year  is  a  fair  example 

of  the  journalistic  enterprise  of  the  period.  It  consisted  of 
Contents  ^^^^^  pages,  13x20  inches,  with  six  columns  to  the  page.     It 

l85o"  ^^'as  printed  from  an  English  font  of  type  of  about  the  same 

Paper  size  as  that  used  in  the  body   of  The   Chronicle,  but  was 

marked  by  a  decided  avoidance  of  display  headings.  It  was 
intended  to  be  complete,  as  may  be  inferred  from  the  statement  printed 
in  black  face,  "For  the  steamer  Isthmus — Wednesday,  May  15,  1850." 
The  first  three  columns  of  the  title  page  were  devoted  to  "Mining  Intelli- 


12  Journalism  in  California 

genco,""  and  the  remaining  three  to  "Pacific  Xews."  The  mining  news 
was  chiefly  composed  of  selections  from  other  papers  duly  credited,  and  the 
matter  under  the  heading  "Pacific  News"  was  made  up  of  local  and  Coast 
items.  The  principal  local  event  described  was  one  of  San  Francisco's 
early  great  fires,  which  swept  away  all  the  buildings  on  Kearny,  Washing- 
ton, Clay,  Jackson  and  Dupont  streets,  resulting  in  damage  estimated  at 
several  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  disaster  was  relatively  as  great, 
considering  the  infancy  of  the  city,  as  that  experienced  in  1906,  but  only 
a  little  more  than  half  a  column  was  used  in  describing  the  affair,  not  more 
than  eight  hundred  words  at  the  utmost. 

The  second  page  Avas  devoted  to  editorials,  news  items  and  letters 
from  the  public.  Three  columns  were  consumed  in  comment,  one  of  the 
editorials  being  on  the  bright  outlook  for  the  cause  of  temperance,  and  an- 
other a  traverse  of  the  news.  The  third  page  contained  a 
No^t"^  batch  of  news  gleaned  from  Hawaiian  papers,  excerpts  from 

Dwelt  other  California  papers  and  commercial  news.     There  were 

Upon  also  some  small  advertisements.     A  curious  feature  of  this 

page  was  the  use  of  an  index  finger  sign  at  the  beginning  of 
small  paragraphs  whether  news  or  announcements.  The  last  page  was  given 
over  largely  to  the  message  of  John  W.  Geary,  the  first  Mayor  under  the 
charter  granted  to  San  Francisco.  It  was  three  columns  in  length.  The 
remainder  of  the  space  was  taken  up  with  reprints  from  Australian  news- 
papers, tabulated  election  returns  and  some  more  Pacific  Coast  news.  The 
investigator  searching  through  this  particular  issue  for  evidence  of  the  tur- 
bulence which  was  supposed  to  have  been  the  normal  condition  of  affairs 
abdlit  this  time  in  San  Francisco  would  not  discover  any,  and  might  con- 
clude that  the  popular  impression  that  affairs  were  in  a  bad  state  was 
erroneous.  The  editorial  on  temperance,  read  between  the  lines,  would 
suggest  to  the  careful  reader  of  later  days  that  the  drink  habit  was  very 
common,  as,  indeed,  it  was,  but  he  would  not  imagine  that  crime  was  ram- 
pant. But,  despite  the  reticence  of  the  Pacific  News  and  other  papers, 
the  criminal  element  was  exceedingly  bold,  and,  according  to  the  writer 
of  the  ''Annals  of  San  Francisco"  had  succeeded  in  terrorizing  the  com- 
munity. 

The  disorderly  part  of  the  community  apparently  continued  their 
depredations  during  1850  and  the  early  part  of  1851  without  experiencing 
any  check  from  the  insufficient  and  inefficient  police  force,  and  the  respect- 
able elements  were  finally  compelled  to  take  the  matter  in 
^^®    ,    .  their  own  hands,  which  they  did  by  organizing  a  Vigilance 

Element  Committee   which    dealt  summarily   with   some   of  the  con- 

in  1851  spicuous  offenders.     Although  there  were  many  murders  be- 

tween 1849  and  1851,  the  perpetrators  escaped  hanging,  and 
it  was  not  until  the  people  rose  in  their  wrath  in  the  latter  year  that  an 
example  was  made  of  an  ex-Sydney  convict,  who  had  stolen  a  safe  and  was 
suspected  of  having  committed  other  crimes.  The  body  of  men  who  took 
the  law  in  their  hands  maintained  their  organization  as  a  Committee  of 
Safety  and  had  the  reputation  of  scaring  the  rogues  who  were  supposed 
to  have  fled  the  city  in  dismay,  but  subsequent  developments  indicate  that 
the  terror  they  inspired  was  not  as  great  as  represented,  for  it  is  related  that 
in  the  first  ten  months  of  1855  there  were  489  murders  committed  in  Cali- 
fornia and  only  six  legal  hangings.     On  the  other  hand,  there  were  forty-six 


Newspaper  Press  in  the    Early  Fifties  13 

cases  of  summary  execution  by  the  mob  during  the  interval,  but  they 
evidently  failed  to  produce  the  effect  which  the  infliction  of  capital  punish- 
ment in  an  orderly  nmnner  is  credited  with  exerting,  for  the  Vigilance  Com- 
mittee created  in  1851  was  practically  compelled  in  1856  to  usurp  the 
functions  of  the  courts,  and  for  a  period  of  several  months  was  obliged  to 
assume  responsibility  for  the  preservation  of  the  peace  of  the  city,  the  ordi- 
nary methods  practiced  in  civilized  societies  having  utterly  broken  down. 

This  second  exhibition  of  activity  by  the  Vigilance  Committee  is  so 
directly  connected  with  the  journalistic  practices  of  the  period  it  will  neces- 
sarily have  to  be  referred  to  at  some  length,  but  before  passing  to  that 
episode,  the  treatment  of  which  more  properly  belongs  to 
Vigilance  ^j^g  chapters  which  will  deal  with  policies  of  the  early  press 

of  of  San  Francisco,  it  will  be  interesting  to  examine  further  into 

1856  the  methods  of  reporting  in  the  fifties  to  ascertain  whether 

there  is  any  foundation  for  an  opinion  frequently  expressed 
during  recent  years  that  the  propensity  to  publish  details  of  crime  is  an 
incitement  to  criminality.  If  this  assumption  were  sound,  it  might  fairly 
be  held  that  avoidance  of  the  mention  of  crime,  or  the  suppression  of  details 
of  criminal  occurrences  would  result  beneficially,  but  the  testimony  of  the 
early  files  does  not  support  the  view. 

Whether  as  a  result  of  the  limitations  imposed  by  want  of  space  due 
to  the  smallness  of  the  papers,  or,  as  is  assumed  by  some  because  the  art  of 
reporting  had  not  been  developed,  crime,  except  of  one  sort,  was  not  dilated 
upon  by  the  papers  of  the  fifties,  although,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the  state- 
ment above  made  concerning  the  number  of  murders  in  1855,  there  was 
enough  to  occupy  attention. 

In  the  detailed  description  of  the  contents  of  a  sample  issue  of  a  paper 
in  1850  the  reader  will  note  the  omission  of  all  reference  to  crime.  Exam- 
ination of  other  papers  reveals  a  like  indifference  to  the  presentation  of  that 
class  of  news.  So  marked  is  its  absence  that  it  might  easily  be  inferred 
that  the  abstention  was  prompted  by  the  desire  to  avoid  mention  of  dis- 
agreeable or  shocking  occurrences,  but  the  occasional  departures  forbid  this 
conclusion  and  suggest  the  true  causes,  namely,  the  failure  of  the  early 
papers  to  develop  on  the  news  side,  because  of  limited  facilities,  and  the  fact 
that  the  town  was  so  small  that  its  inhabitants  knew  all  the  details  of  an 
affair  before  they  could  be  put  into  print. 

The  latter  peculiarity  Avill  be  understood  by  those  living  in  small  towns, 
while  it  is  not  so  easily  comprehended  by  the  denizen  of  cities  large  enough 
to  permit  one  to  be  unknown  to  his  next  door  neighbor.  That 
?^®^^  of  limited  facilities  can  be  made  clearer  by  describing  a  plant 

Early  of  H^e  sort  which  produced  such  a  paper  as  the  Sun,  one  of 

Days  the  earliest  daily  publications  of  San  Francisco.     It  was  a 

four-page  paper" twenty-two  and  a  half  inches  long  and  six- 
teen and  a  half  wide  with  six  columns  to  the  page.  That  was  a  favorite 
size  of  the  dailies  of  the  early  fifties,  the  seven  and  eight  column  pages  and 
the  eight-page  paper  being  a  later  development.  The  first  page  of  the  Sun 
was  given  up  to  advertisements,  only  a  column  of  the  six  being  devoted  to 
reading  matter  of  a  not  highly  illuminating  character,  as,  for  instance,  the 
statement  that  it  would  take  over  9000  years  to  count  a  billion.  The 
second  page  contained  a  column  of  editorial  comment,  which  was  inter- 
spersed with  numerous  brief  news  items.     On  the  days   succeeding  the 


14  Journalism  in  California 

meeting  of  the  Council  the  second  page  usually  contained  an  extended  ac- 
count of  its  doings,  minute  details  of  no  general  interest  being  as  carefully 
presented  as  the  more  important  matter.  The  third  and  fourth  pages  were 
wholly  occupied  with  small  classified  advertisements,  and  of  the  twenty-four 
columns  printed  there  were  on  some  days  as  many  as  nineteen  and  a  half  | 
columns  engrossed  by  the  business  office  leaving  only  four  and  a  half  ' 
columns  for  the  editor  to  fill. 

It  would  be  incorrect  to  state  that  these  two  somewhat  detailed  descrip- 
tions furnish  an  accurate  idea  of  the  dailies  of  San  Francisco  during  the 
early  fifties.     That  could   be   done   only   by  reviewing  each   issue  of  the 
numerous  bidders  for  public  patronage.     In  1851  there  were 
)y    "  as  many  as  twelve  daily  papers  published  in  the  city  which 

Editor  ^^^^  suddenly  sprung  into  prominence,  owing  to  the  widely- 

Counted  heralded  discovery  of  gold,  and  no  one  of  them  seemed  bent 

on  earning  favor  by  printing  the  news.  They  were,  in  fact, 
overgrown  pamphlets,  the  principal  object  of  which  seemed  to  be  the 
dissemination  of  the  views  of  a  coterie  b)^  a  chosen  representative.  News 
and  other  reading  matter  than  editorial  comment  was  presented  in  such  a 
haphazard  fashion  if  was  plain  that  the  editor  regarded  them  as  of  minor 
consequence.  And  perhaps  he  was  right,  for,  under  the  circvimstances,  it 
was  well  nigh  impossible  for  a  newspaper  to  print  any  intelligence  of  im- 
portance which  was  not  known  to  every  one  in  the  community  before  the 
account  could  be  put  into  type,  printed  and  published. 

There  was  one  function,  however,  which  the  press  of  the  period  as- 
sumed that  caused  the  appearance  of  the  more  popular  of  the  journals 
to  be  looked  forward  to  with  eagerness.     From  the  columns  of  the  dailies 
and  the  pages  of  the  Annals  we  can  gather  the  fact  that 
Corrupt  municipal   affairs   were  grossly  mismanaged   during  several 

Management     jears-     The  City  Council,  a  body  corresponding  to  the  present 
Criticised  Board  of  Supervisors,  was  constantly  putting  through  meas- 

ures which  were  denounced  as  jobs,  and  the  courts  were  noto- 
riously negligent  in  the  performance  of  their  duties  or  hopelessly  corrupt. 
Such  a  condition  of  affairs  invited  censure,  and  the  editor  whose  pen  was 
dipped  in  vitriol  was  in  high  favor,  and  his  emanations  were  always  looked 
forward  to  Avith  expectant  eagerness.  The  writer  who  could  tell  the  truth 
in  the  plainest  fashion  possible  and  who  could  give  the  hardest  knocks 
shared  popularity  with  the  stump  orator  who  voiced  the  grievances  of  the 
crowd  at  the  frequently  held  indignation  meetings.  This  being  the  situa- 
tion, it  would  have  been  astonishing  if  the  publishers  of  newspapers  had  not 
aimed  to  secure  an  editor  whose  philippics  rivaled  those  of  Demosthenes, 
and  pioneers  of  an  observant  disposition  at  a  later  day  told  that  the  reader 
did  not  look  in  the  Xews,  the  Herald,  the  Alta,  or  any  of  the  live  sheets 
half  so  much  for  intelligence  as  to  see  who  was  being  ''lambasted." 

Those  were  the  days  of  "personal  journalism"  of  a  different  sort  from 
that  applauded  or  denounced  at  present.  Signed  articles  were  rare, 
but  every  Avord  in  a  scathing  editorial  usually  proclaimed  its  authorship, 
and  the  writer  rarely  shrank  from  mentioning  names  and  left  a  Avell 
defined  impression  on  the  reader's  mind  that  when  he  said  "spade"  he 
meant  spade.  As  a  consequence,  personal  encounters  were  numerous. 
Gentlemen  were  accustomed  to  demanding  satisfaction  in  the  early  fifties, 
and  when  one  felt  particularly  aggrieved  because  he  had  been  indicted  in 


"smm^: 


JJcuIti  ^^Ita    (Enlifofnta. 


Suit  J  -  ' 


-t^;iMft.i^,.w  ;a3  ' 


DAILY  ALTA  CALIFORNIA 
Containing  account  of  wreck  of  the  George  Law. 


Newspaper  Press  in  the    Early  Fifties  15 

tlie  columns  of  a  newspaper  he  was  prone  to  ask  the  editor  to  meet  him  at 
some  convenient  place  to  be  shot  at  and  thus  bring  about  an 
Days  of  amicable  adjustment  of  differences.     As  the  other  editor  was 

Personal  o^^en  the  fellow  at  whom  the  finger  of  scorn  was  pointed, 

Journalism        there  w^re  occasional  combats  in  which  the  principals  were 
newspaper  men.     The  senior  editor  of  the  Alta  was  killed 
in  a  duel  in  1853,  and  other  members  of  the  Fourth  Estate  were  called 
upon  to  make  satisfaction  about  the  same  time. 

Affairs  of  honor  during  the  early  fifties  were  too  common  to  make  a 
great  impression  unless   the  participants   occupied  a  prominent   political 
position,  and  the  newspapers  disposed  of  them,  as  a  rule,  in  a  very  off- 
hand  manner.     One  journal  was  accustomed  to  using  a  degree 
Reports  ^^  brevity  in  its  descriptions  which  suggested  adherence  to  a 

"Affairs  of      •'^et  form  like  that  followed  in  printing  death  notices.     "John 
Honor"  Jones  and  Peter  Smith  met  yesterday,  and,  after  an  exchange 

of  shots,  in  which  the  latter  received  a  ball  in  the  right  arm, 
the  challenged  party  declared  himself  satisfied.  Sam  Merton  and  Bill 
Dixon  acted  as  seconds."  Evidently  the  reporter  felt  that  he  was  perform- 
ing a  duty  in  recording  the  event,  and  perhaps  he  thought  that  no  details 
M'ere  required  because  a  sufficiently  large  number  of  interested  spectators 
had  Avitnessed  the  affair,  no  pains  being  taken  by  anyone  concerned  to  sur- 
round the  performance  with  secrecy. 

The  lot  of  the  editor  and  publisher  throughout  the  fifties  could  not 
have  been  a  very  happy  one,  for  the  newspaper  mortality  record  was  too 
high  to  permit  those  engaged  in  the  business  to  feel  assured  that  their  ven- 
ture might  not  also  be  interred  in  what  w^as  jocularly  termed 
Ne^I^  the  newspaper  graveyard.     It  will  be  recalled  that  the  pub- 

paper  lisher  of  the  Californian  felicitated  himself  upon  the  fact  that 

Mortality  after   six   months'   experience,   contrary   to    expectation,   his 

journal  had  actually  paid  expenses.  Subsequently  it  was 
transplanted  from  Monterey  to  San  Erancisco,  and,  after  the  gold  discovery, 
w^as  merged  with  the  California  Star,  the  paper  started  under  Mormon 
auspices.  Later  the  merged  papers  Avere  absorbed  by  a  new  candidate  for 
favor,  the  Alta  California,  which,  on  January  23,  18r)0,  bloomed  forth  as  a 
daily,  the  first  in  San  Francisco.  A  glance  at  the  list  of  publications 
testifies  to  the  hard  rows  the  early  publishers  had  to  hoe.  The  most  of 
them  have  put  up  their  shutters.  The  C^alifornia  Star,  the  Pacific  Xews, 
the  Alta,  the  Herald,  the  Picayune  (the  first  evening  paper  publislicd  in  the 
city),  the  Courier,  the  Balance  and  the  Times  and  Transcript  are  all  gone, 
the  only  survivors  of  the  very  early  days  being  the  German  Demokrat,  the 
Journal  of  Commerce  (which  dropped  out  for  a  period)  and  the  Evening 
Bulletin,  wdiose  founder,  James  King  of  William,  was  murdered  by  a  city 
official  named  Casey,  who  contributed  to  a  weekly  paper  known  as  the 
Sunday  Times. 

The  Bulletin  was  started  on  the  8th  of  October,  1855,  and  the  editor 
in  his  salutatory  announced  that  he  had  been  driven  into  the  experiment  of 
publishing,  and  that  "no  one  could  be  more  fully  sensible  of  the  folly  of  a 
newspaper  enterprise"  than  himself.  From  such  a  statement,  and  the  news- 
paper mortality  record,  it  may  properly  be  inferred  that  the  publishing 
business  was  not  very  profitable  in  early  days,  a  fact  from  which  the  further 
inference  may  be  drawn  that  the  patronage  was  not  very  liberal  as  the 


16 


Journalism  in  California 


expenses  of  coiuluctin.u;  a  daily  such  as  those  produced  niiy  time  before  1860 
were  comparatively  light.     The  plant  required  to  produce  the  small  four- 
page  sheets  was  of  the  simplest.     An  office  equipped  with  eight 
^°*  ^  hundred  to  a  thousand  pounds  of  type  and  a  hand  press  were 

Making  adequate  to  turn  out  a  metropolitan  journal  of  the  period. 

Business  Five  or  six  men  at  the  utmost  were  required  to  set  the  matter 

and  print  the  paper.  The  problems  besetting  the  present-day 
editor  were  unknown  at  the  time,  and  it  was  literally  true  that  there  was 
often  difficulty  in  getting  together  enough  type  to  fill  the  small  space  de- 
voted to  reading  matter.  Such  a  thing  as  "crowding  out"  news,  or  any- 
thing else  that  had  been  "set  up"  was  nnheard  of  in  the  pioneer  composing 
rooms.     Xot  infrequently,  the  condition  arose  described  in  the  couplet: 

Up  jumped  the  devil,  all  so  solemn. 

And  wrote  two  lines  to  fill  out  the  colunin. 

For  the  devil  was  a  feature  of  the  early  printing  office,  and  like  as  not  in 
some  cases  he  may  have  jumped  into  the  breach  and  provided  the  required 
two  or  thi'ee  lines  to  fill  up,  otherwise  the  edition  would  have  appeared  with 
the  blemish  of  a  blank  space. 


CHAPTER  III 

POLICIES   AND   ATTITUDE    OF   THE   PEESS 
DUEING  THE  FIFTIES. 

Grafters  Judged  With  Leineney — The  Press  and  the  Land  Grabbers — Collectivism 
Not  in  High  Favor — City  Lots  Sold  for  a  Song — Legislation  to  Eeniove  Clouds 
on  Titles — The  Squatter  Troubles— Fraudulent  Spanish  Grants — An  Attempt 
to  Grab  the  Whole  City — Limantour's  Claim  Pronounced  Fraudulent  in  1858 — 
The  Condouement  of  Evils — Subordination  of  Local  Interest  to  National  Affaii-s 
— The  Constitutional  Convention  of  1850 — The  Slavery  Question  and  the  Disposi- 
tion to  Compromise- — Filibusters  and  Filibustering — National  Affairs  Freely 
Discussed  by  Editors — The  Fugitive  Slave  Act  Applauded — Contradictory  Atti- 
tude on  the  Subject  of  Slavery — Opposition  to  the  Introduction  of  Slaves — Eaee 
Prejudice  Prevalent — Absolute  Disregard  of  the  Principles  of  Neutrality — - 
Advocacy  of  Cuban  Independence  in  1851 — The  Manifest  Destiny  Idea — "Fifty- 
four  Forty  or  Fight ' ' — Open  Recruiting  for  Filibustering  Expeditions — Editors 
Who  Thought  Walker  Was  a  Hero — Editors  Who  Could  Smell  Out  Intrigues — 
American  and  French  Attempts  to  Grab  Sonora — The  Absorbing  Editorial  Topic 
— No  Sentiment  in  Favor  of  Dissociating  Local  From  National  Polities — A 
Scolding  Press  Which  Accomplished  No  Reforms — The  Unceasing  Attempts  to 
Gain   Party  Advantage — Warfare   Between   Editors. 


0  ADEQUATE  impression  of  the  pioneer  press  of  San 
Francisco  can  be  formed  without  carefully  considering 
the  causes  which  produced  the  turbulent  condition 
which  culminated  in  the  decisive  action  of  the  A'igilance 
Committee  of  1856.  The  investigator  cannot  help  being 
profoundly  impressed  by  the  part  })layed  by  the  public 
journals  in  bringing  about  a  state  of  atfairs  which  writ- 
'  '     ers  have  vainly  sought  to  excuse,  but  which,  when  care- 

fully analyzed,  are  clearly  seen  to  be  faults  of  omission  as  well  as  commis- 
sion. It  would  be  easy,  by  a  judicious  selection  of  excerpts  from  the  press  of 
San  Francisco,  to  prove  that  a  part  of  it  was  vigorously  engaged  at  all  times 
between  the  date  of  the  gold  rush  and  the  Vigilante  episode  which  followed 
tlie  murder  of  James  King  of  William,  editor  of  the  Bulletin,  in  the  ex- 
posure of  corruption  of  all  sorts ;  but  the  severe  critic  could  easily  adduce 
numerous  instances  of  leniency  of  judgment  concerning  practices  which  are 
now  stigmatized  as  grafting.  Tluit  was  notal)]y  true  of  the  attitude  of 
many  papers  toward  the  sale  of  tlie  pueblo  lands  of  tlie  city.  The  disposi- 
tion in  many  quarters  was  to  regard  tbcm  in  the  same  light  as  the  unsettled 
national  domain  and  to  assume  tbat  tliose  who  came  first  had  the  right 
to  grab  tbcm.  Theorizing  on  the  subject  led  to  the  obscuration  of  the  fact 
that  tbe  ])roceedings  surrounding  their  sale  were  often  in  the  highest 
degree  irreguhir,  and  that  those  who  had  charge  of  their  disposal  never 
gave  a  thought  to  the  public  interest. 

17 


18  Journalism  in  California 

Tlie  upperniopt  tliouglit,  and  it  was  entertained  by  the  most  respectable 
of  the  newspapers  of  tlie  city,  was  that  the  public  would  be  benefited  by  the 
lands  passing  into  the  hands  of  private  owners,  who  would  put  them  to 

good  use  and  benefit  the  community.  It  was  argued  that  the 
Conservatism  experiment  of  collective  use  had  proved  a  rank  failure  under 
Early  Spanisli  and  Mexican  rule,  and  tliat  the  true  way  to  promote 

Press  improvements  and  encourage  enterprise  woiild  be  to  put  San 

Francisco  on  the  same  footing  as  other  cities  of  the  United 
States.  Observation  seemed  to  justify  this  view  of  the  case,  for  there  was 
little  or  no  demand  for  town  lots  between  1839,  w^hen  a  survey  was  made 
by  Alcalde  Haro,  and  1847,  when  the  principal  part  of  the  village  of  Yerba 
Buena  was  laid  out  in  fifty  vara  lots,  four  hundred  and  fifty  of  which 
were  applied  for  and  sold  at  the  absurdly  low  price  of  $12  each,  to  which 
was  added  a  charge  of  $4  for  deed  and  recording,  making  the  total  cost 
to  the  purchaser  $16.  In  addition  to  these  fifty  vara  lots  there  w^ere  also 
sold  lots  100  varas  square  for  $25  each,  plus  the  same  sum  exacted  for 
deed  and  recording  of  fifty  vara  lots. 

That  the  transference  of  the  pueblo  lands  to  private  ownership  resulted 
in  stimulating  improvements  is  undoubtedly  true,  but  subsequent  sales  were 
made  under  circumstances  suggestive  of  fraud  in  which  the  authorities  were 

accused  of  participating.  In  one  instance,  a  batch  of  lots 
Early  was  sold  at  $100  apiece,  the  money  being  pocketed  by  the 

L^"^  man  making  the  sale,  who  fled  with  the  proceeds  when  his 

irregularities  were  found  fault  with.     These  rascalities  and 

others  equally  flagrant  w^ere  subsequently  condoned  by  legis- 
lative acts,  which  confirmed  the  titles  without  giving  much  consideration  to 
their  legal  status,  the  paramount  desire  being  to  remove  the  clouds  which 
the  taint  of  fraud  threw  over  all  conveyances.  As  a  consequence  of  this 
looseness  of  method,  there  was  a  period  during  which  squatters  asserted  that 
they  liad  a  right  to  settle  on  any  unoccupied  lands.  Many  collisions  occurred 
and  tlie  effect  on  the  public  mind,  as  mirrored  in  the  press,  was  to  create 
a  desire  for  a  settlement  which  would  establish  titles  without  going  into  the 
question  closely  wdiether  the  authority  existed  for  granting  them,  and 
presently  the  most  respectable  elements  of  the  community  w^ere  arrayed  on 
the  side  of  possession.  The  squatter,  who  oftener  than  otherwise  was  a 
hired  person  ready  to  risk  his  life  for  someone  who  had  "staked"  him, 
generally  belonged  to  the  turbulent  class,  the  so-called  "Sydney  coves" 
taking  kindly  to  the  business. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  major  part  of  the  press  should  have 
earnestly  urged  the  settlement  of  titles,  for,  in  addition  to  the  troubles  grow- 
jng  out  of  the  Colton  grants  and  the  Peter  Smith  w^ater  front  purchases, 

which  were  made  with  frightfully  depreciated  scrip,  there  was 
Settlement  ^j^^  constant  menace  of  the  fraudulent  Spanish  or  Mexican 
Titles  land  grant.     At  one  time  every  owner  of  property  in  San 

Urged  Francisco  was  harassed  by  the  fear  that  the  claim  of  a  man 

named  Jose  J.  T.imantour  to  practically  all  the  land  of  any 
vaine  in  the  city  might  be  held  valid.  Limantour  set  up  that  in  1813  he 
had  loaned  the  sum  of  $4000  to  the  ]\rexican  Governor,  for.  which  he 
received  a  grant  in  the  neighljorhood  of  Yerba  Buena  of  four  leagues,  and, 
in  addition,  the  islands  of  Ak-atraz,  Y^'erba  Buena,  the  Farallones  and  a 
square  league  on  the  island  of  Los  Angeles  (Angel  island).     It  was  not 


Policies  of  the  Press  During  the  Fifties  19 

until  April  22,  1858,  that  tlie  Commission  appointed  1)}^  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment finally  decided  that  Limantour's  claim  was  fraudulent.  This  decision, 
and  an  earlier  one  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  State  in  Octoher,  1853, 
which  confirmed  the  Alcalde  grants,  relieved  the  press  of  the  dilficult  task 
of  justifying  methods  which  the  community  knew  would  not  bear  inspec- 
tion, but  which  the  common  welfare  seemed  to  demand.  Unquestionably, 
the  stable  elements  exerted  a  great  pressure  on  the  press  in  this  particular 
matter,  but  it  was  not  always  successful  in  repressing  criticism  which  was 
frequently  vigorously  expressed,  although  the  conclusion  almost  invariably 
reached  was  that  the  interests  of  society  demanded  the  condonement  of  t!ie 
evils  criticised. 

Unquestionably,  the  land  grabbing  of  the  days  immediately  following 
the  gold  discovery  at  Sutter's  mill  was  largely  responsible  for  the  lowering 
of  the  morale  of  the  community.     It  was  fruitful  of  much  denunciation  of 
municipal   corruption,   which   failed   to   be   effective   largely 
~y  because  too  many  who  were  looked  up  to  as  leaders  benefited 

Land  through  the  abuses  charged  against  public  officials.    Possibly, 

Grabbing  the  business  of  exposure  was  overdone.     Certainly  there  was 

so  much  of  it  that  it  must  have  ceased  to  attract  attention, 
or  it  was,  perhaps,  subordinated  in  the  public  mind  by  contemplation  of 
much  larger  issues  than  the  turpitude  of  puldic  officials  seemed  to  involve. 
The  period  we  are  writing  about  was  one  of  national  unrest.  The  shadow 
of  slavery  was  over  the  land  and  men  were  filled  with  a  vague  dread  of 
the  outcome.  The  country  had  just  emerged  from  the  war  with  Mexico, 
and  while  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  any  considerable  number  of 
persons  who  had  rushed  to  California  in  search  of  the  precious  metal  had 
any  doubts  about  tlie  propriety  of  annexing  the  coveted  province,  the  most 
of  them  were  tolerably  well  convinced  that  the  slaveholding  oligarchy  was 
not  entirely  satisfied  with  the  decision  reached  by  the  Constitutional  Con- 
vention which  met  at  Monterey  in  1850,  that  California  should  be  a  free 
State.  Events  were  constantly  occurring  calculated  to  disturb  the  feeling 
of  security  which  had  been  engendered  in  the  minds  of  a  people  pledged 
to  the  principle  of  freedom  of  labor,  but  who  were  still  under  the  thralldom 
of  the  idea  that  the  great  question  was  one  to  be  determined  by  the  states. 
Seward's  famous  apothegm  concerning  "the  irrepressible  conflict"  did 
not  find  expression  until  1858,  and  before  that  time,  in  California,  as  in 
other  arts  of  the  Union,  the  enemies  of  slavery  were  disposed  to  com- 
promise, but  their  opponents  never  for  a  moment  ceased  their 
'^^  .  ,  .  aggressive  tactics.  The  extension  of  the  institution  was  con- 
Slavery^  °^^"^stantly  in  their  mind,  and  efforts  to  gratify  their  desires  were 
Question  ceaselessly  pushed.     California  participated  in  these  tactics 

of  the  slaveholders  in  a  greater  degree  than  any  other  free 
state  of  the  Union.  Its  legislature  was  made  the  seat  of  intrigue,  and 
filibustering  ventures  of  varied  sorts,  many  of  them  having  for  their  object 
tlie  acquisition  of  more  territory  from  Mexico,  were  projected  and  financed 
in  San  Francisco.  Tlie  editors  of  San  Francisco  journals  were  far  better 
acquainted  with  what  was  going  on  than  those  of  other  sections,  and  moves 
and  motives  were  the  chief  editorial  themes.  Despite  the  fact  that  free 
labor  had  w^on  an  ovenvhelming  victory  in  the  framing  of  the  ]\Ionterey 
Constitution,  the  State  was  filled  with  men  who  sympathized  with  the  aims 
of  the  South.     It  is  astonishing  to  note  how.  manv  San  Francisco  writers 


20  Journalism  in  California 

were  inclined  to  applaud  the  passage  by  Congress  in  1850  of  the  so-called 
fugitive  slave  act.  The  arguments  employed  seem  strange  to  this  generation, 
but  not  to  the  men  of  the  day  when  Chief  Justice  Taney  rendered  his 
celebrated  decision  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  in  which  he  virtually  declared 
that  a  slave  was  a  chattel,  and  that  the  rights  of  a  human  being  did  not 
attacli  to  him.  That  decision  was  rendered  on  March  G,  1857,  but,  shock- 
ing as  it  now  seems,  it  was  the  mere  crystallization  of  the  general  attitude 
toward  the  African  slave,  and  in  no  other  state  did  it  find  a  more  ready 
acceptance  than  in  California,  from  which  slavery  was  rigorously  excluded. 

But  while  men,  by  their  votes  and  actions  in  California,  seemed  ready 
to  e;xtend  a  helping  hand  to  those  seeking  to  strengthen  the  institution,  a 
section  of  the  press  was  indefatigable  in  its  opposition  to  any  movement 
having  for  its  object  the  introducion  of  servile  labor  ino  the 
Opposition  State.  In  1852  a  memorial  was  sent  to  the  Legislature  by 
Servile  ^  number  of  citizens  of  South  Carolina  and  Florida  asking 

Labor  permission  to  colonize  a  part  of  the  State  and  to  bring  not 

less  than  2000  slaves  to  assist  in  the  work  of  redeeming 
assumedly  wild  lands.  It  was  fiercely  assailed  by  some  papers  and  gingerly 
advocated  by  one  or  two  under  the  domination  of  Southern  men,  but  the 
sentiment  was  so  immistakably  against  the  request  that  it  hardly  received 
the  courtesy  of  being  formally  tabled.  No  better  index  of  the  state  of 
public  mind  in  the  early  fifties  is  afforded  than  the  act  of  the  Legislature  in 
1850  which  disqualified  any  black  or  mulatto  person  or  Indian  from  giving 
testimony  in  a  case  in  which  a  white  was  a  party.  This  statute  remained 
on  the  books  until  1863  and  gave  rise  to  much  argument  and  furnished  the 
theme  for  many  an  editorial.  Some  queer  views  were  expressed  and  not 
a  few  of  the  warmest  advocates  of  the  discrimination  found  their  inspiration 
in  the  Scriptures.  Although  the  modern  school  of  biology  had  made  some 
headway  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  its  teachings  were  not 
widely  accepted  by  the  disputants,  who  preferred  to  lean  upon  the  Bible,  in 
which  they  professed  to  find  support  for  racial  distinctions,  and  an  abun- 
dance of  authority  for  maintaining  the  assumedly  inferior  in  a  state  of 
bondage. 

When  we  turn  to  the  early  journals  to  discover  the  state  of  the  public 
mind  toward  the  filibustering  movements  of  the  fifties,  we  are  bewildered 
by  what  seems  a  unanimity  of  approbation  of  what  to  us  now  appear  to 
be  unmistakable  efforts  to  extend  the  institution  of  slavery. 
Filibustering  There  was  no  adverse  criticism  of  the  slaveholders'  plans  to 
Openly  annex  Cuba  under  the  pretense  of  securing  liberty  for  the 

Advocated  oppressed  Cubans,  and  such  comment  as  was  evoked  by  the 
Xew  Orleans  riot  in  August,  1851,  growing  out  of  the 
obstacles  placed  in  the  way  of  a  filibustering  expedition,  was  unfavorable 
to  those  who  sought  to  interfere  with  the  enterprise.  The  Cuban  independ- 
ence scheme  appealed  to  many  of  the  San  Francisco  editors,  and  when 
Slidell  introduced  his  bill  in  Congress  in  1859  for  the  appropriation  of 
$30,000,000  to  be  used  in  the  acquisition  of  the  "Ever  Faithful  Isle,"  it 
wa.s  pronounced  a  measure  well  calculated  to  ease  a  situation  which  was 
yearly  becoming  more  tense. 

This  was  one  point  of  view  but  the  jiractical  indorsement  of  the  policy 
of  aggression  on  neighbors  by  virtually  the  whole  community,  which  en- 
couraged such  men  as  Walker,  is  explainable  on  the  theory  that  the  people 


WILLIAM  WALKER 
The  Nicaraguan  filibuster. 


Policies  of  the  Press  During  the   Fifties  21 

were  so  obsessed  by  the  manifest  destiny  idea  that  they  lost  sight  of  the 
otlier  possibilities  which  the  acquisition  of  territory  involved.     An  editor, 
who  has  preserved  for  us  the  life  and  spirit  of  the  early  days 
Manifest  ^^  ^^^^  "Annals  of  San  Francisco/'  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  the 

Destiny  extent  of  this  obsession  in  a  passage  in  which  he  outlines  the 

Idea  fancied  ease  with  which  the  empire  of  China  might  be  con- 

quered by  energetic .  Americans,  who  could  employ  their 
shrewdness  as  England  did  in  India  by  playing  one  set  of  Orientals  against 
the  other.  With  ideas  of  this  sort  permeating  the  editorial  mind,  it  is  not 
surprising  that  writers  for  the  San  Francisco  press  shoukl  have  looked  upon 
unscrupulous  adventurers  of  tlie  stamp  of  Walker  as  heroes,  and  shut  their 
eyes  to  the  enormity  of  encouraging  the  rape  of  neighboring  territory. 

Tlie  obligation  of  neutrality  was  not  much  respected   l)y  any  power 
at  that  particular  time.     The  war  with  China  waged  by  Great  Britain  to 
force  that  decrepit  nation  to  open  its  ports  to  the  traders  of  tlie  West  was 
still  fresh  in  the  minds  of  the  pioneers,  and  the  slaveholders' 
Nc^ions  assault   on    Mexico,    which   followed   the   vainglorious   boast 

Concerning  of  Polk  that  England  would  have  to  move  her  Canadian 
Neutrality  boundary  to  54  degrees  40  minutes  or  fight  the  United  States, 
was  an  equally  fresh  memory.  The  success  in  the  one  case 
and  the  failure  in  the  other  greatly  stimulated  the  manifest  destiny  idea. 
The  cession  of  Hongkong  to  the  British  prompted  the  desire  to  emulate, 
and  the  failure  to  make  good  the  ''fifty-four  forty"  brag  rankled  greatly  in 
the  minds  of  the  manifest  destinarians,  who  convinced  themselves  that  the 
ignominy  of  the  backdown  on  the  north  could  be  wiped  out  only  by  stretch- 
ing our  empire  southward.  The  star  of  the  nation  had  traveled  as  far 
westward  as  it  conveniently  could  and  what  more  natural  than  to  look  with 
approval  upon  propositions  to  deflect  it  from  its  course  and  make  it  travel 
southward  until  its  rays  penetrated  the  remotest  part  of  "Greaserdom." 

Thus  talked  the  editors  of  the  early  days  of  San  Francisco,  and,  wdiile 
they  unburdened  themselves,  men  of  the  Walker  stamp  had  no  difficulty  in 
securing  all  the  recruits  they  needed  to  engage  in  their  mad  enterprises. 
There  Avas  no  Presidential  warning  issued  against  the  unseem- 
D  fi\  liness  of  making  raids  on  peoples  with  whom  we  Avere  at 

of  peace.     The  public  conscience  was  not  very  tender  on  such 

Law  subjects   as   neutrality,   and  it   does  not  appear  that  either 

authorities  or  the  warning  voice  of  the  press  were  heard  in 
denunciation  of  tlie  flaunting  of  the  filibusters'  flag  from  buildings  in  San 
Francisco,  or  the  open  financing  of  expeditions  whose  plainly  expressed 
object  was  the  stealing  of  territory  from  countries  Avitli  which  Ave  Avere  at 
peace.  In  1852,  Avhen  William  Walker  announced  his  scheme  of  estal)Iish- 
ing  a  republic  in  LoAver  California  the  proposal  Avas  hailed  Avith  applause 
and  scrip  or  promises  to  pay  based  on  the  prospective  revenues  of  the  new 
government  was  freely  sold.  "It  is  ever  the  fate  of  America  to  go  ahead. 
*  *  *  So  will  America  conquer  and  annex  all  lands.  That  is  her  manifest 
destiny,"  declared  one  editor,  and  the  exultation  Avith  Avhich  the  ncAVS  of 
the  occupation  of  La  Paz  by  Walker  was  receiA-ed,  and  the  promptitude 
Avith  AAdiich  volunteers  ofl^ered  themselves  and  AA^ere  publicly  enrolled,  un- 
checked by  the  autliorities,  point  conclusively  to  an  approbation  not  strictly 
local  in  character. 

Later  President  Pierce,  under  pressure,  after  Walker  had  taken  posses- 


22  Journalism  in  California 

sion  of  Ciranada,  issued  a  proclamation — possibly  because  the  filibuster  had 
allowed  himself  to  be  diverted  from  his  earlier  project  of  taking  possession 

of  Sonora.  That  was  in  December,  1855 ;  but,  when  he  sailed 
liTtrieues  from   San  Francisco  for  Lower  California  on  October  15, 

of  1853,  nobody  interposed  an  objection.     Those  w^ere  days  of 

Foreigners         intrigue,  and  editors  were  kept  busy  trying  to  divine  what 

was  going  on.  They  were  shrewd  guessers  and  got  to  the 
bottom  of  affairs  without  the  aid  of  armies  of  reporters.  As  early  as  1850, 
two  titled  Frenchmen,  Count  Gaston  Eaoul  de  Raoussett-Boulbon  and  an- 
other, known  as  the  Marquis  de  Pindray,  found  their  way  to  San  Francisco. 
Both  of  these  men  were  suspected  of  being  emissaries  of  Napoleon  III, 
and,  when  the  former,  in  1852,  sailed  for  Lower  California  with  a  band  of 
250  men,  recruited  in  San  Francisco,  the  papers  were  not  backward  in 
charging  that  their  purpose  was  not  to  colonize,  as  was  intimated,  but  that 
they  were  bent  on  creating  a  buffer  state  between  Mexico  and  the  United 
States.  Raoussett  had  some  dealings  with  the  Mexican  Government,  but  the 
integrity  of  his  purpose  was  soon  called  into  question  and  he  came  into 
open  collision  with  the  troops  of  Mexico  in  Lower  California  and  later 
succeeded  in  capturing  Hermosillo.  When  he  returned  to  San  Francisco 
his  exploit  was  made  much  of  by  the  people,  but  the  Frenchman's  plans 
crossed  those  of  the  pro-slavery  element,  and  an  attempt  to  raise  funds  for 
a  second  expedition  was  frustrated  by  the  circulation  of  a  report  that  the 
whole  of  Sonora  had  been  ceded  to  the  United  States.  The  French  Consul 
later  became  mixed  up  in  the  project  and  was  tried  for  violating  the 
neutrality  laws.  He  set  up  as  a  idefense  that  the  800  men  who  were  pre- 
vented leaving  San  Francisco  on  March  29,  1854,  on  the  British  ship 
Challenge  were  going  there  with  the  object  of  colonizing  Mexico  so  as 
effectually  to  prevent  filibustering.  The  jury  trying  the  Consul  was  unable 
to  agree,  but  the  press  found  no  difficulty  in  believing  in  his  guilt,  and  dis- 
played considerable  acumen  in  the  discussion  of  Napoleon's  intentions  and 
made  predictions  which  were  well  substantiated  later  by  the  events  which 
culminated  in  the  death  of  Maximilian  and  the  madness  of  his  wife 
Carlotta. 

But  these  were  minor  issues,  comparatively  speaking,  and,  while 
affording  subjects  for  exciting  comment,  they  never  attained  to  the  distinc- 
tion of  being  the  absorbing  topic.     That,  from  the  beginning,  was,  and, 

until  the  firing  on  Sumter,  remained,  the  question  whether 
J^®  the  slave  oligarchy  of  the   South  or  the  free  North  was  to 

Editorial  dominate  the  country.     It  was  not  whether  slavery  should 

Topic  survive  as  an  institution  in  the  United  States;  the  problem 

did  not  present  itself  in  that  way  until  some  years  after 
Seward  had  declared  that  it  was  an  irrepressible  conflict.  The  Civil  War 
had  grown  a  wearisome  horror  long  before  the  people  decided  that  slavery 
must  go,  and  there  were  still  many  who  abhorred  the  institution  who 
doubted  the  wisdom  of  utterly  dispensing  with  it  even  after  Lincoln  issued 
the  proclamation  which  put  his  name  high  on  the  role  of  fame.  A  cursory 
glance  at  the  editorial  columns  of  the  San  Francisco  press  during  the 
years  between  the  passage  of  the  bill  for  the  arrest  of  fugitive  slaves  and 
that  A])ril  day  in  1861  when  Sumter  was  fired  upon  shows  that  everything 
was  subordinated  in  the  public  mind  to  the  "burning  question."  Assaults 
on  municipal  corruption  were  merely  digressions.     There  were  many  such 


Policies  of  the  Press  During  the  Fifties  23 

and  the  failure  of  the  people  to  heed  reiterated  warnings  had  a  tragic  out- 
come. But  it  was  impossible  to  persuade  men  that  attention  to  local  affairs 
need  not  be  wholly  subordinated  to  national  considerations,  and  the  ma- 
chinery devised  for  the  conduct  of  public  matters  entirely  engrossed  by  those 
fighting  the  battle  which  eventually  had  to  be  settled  with  weapons  more 
potent  than  ballots. 

There  were  few  at  the  time  who  had  the  temerity  to  suggest  that 
national  and  local  aifairs  might  be  dissociated.  The  men  who  built  up  the 
city  had  been  accustomed  to  a  system  which  made  the  selection  of  municipal 

officials  a  minor  cogwheel  in  the  national  political  machine. 
SubordSate  "^^^^  constant  discussion  of  state's  rights  and  the  threats  of 
Local  secession   made   as   early   as   1850   by   the    Southern   Rights 

Affairs  Associations   of    South   Carolina,  the   Kansas-Nebraska   bill, 

the  settlement  of  Lawrence,  Kansas,  by  anti-slavery  men, 
the  Ostend  manifesto  calling  for  the  purchase  of  Cuba  by  the  United  States, 
the  decision  of  the  Wisconsin  Supreme  Court  that  the  fugitive  slave  law 
was  unconstitutional,  the  free  State  convention  at  Lawrence  in  August, 
1854,  and  that  at  Topeka  a  couple  of  months  later,  so  fully  occupied  the 
attention  of  press  and  public  it  would  have  been  strange  indeed  if  any 
serious  effort  had  been  made  to  divorce  local  from  national  politics.  There 
was  no  such  attempt.  The  press  scolded  and  pointed  the  finger  of  scorn 
at  malefactors  in  office.  Jobs  were  exposed  and  the  negligence  and  turpi- 
tude of  courts  w^ere  scathingly  denounced,  but  it  did  not  occur  to  anybody 
that  the  trouble  was  due  to  incivicism  and  misdirection  of  public  virtue. 
There  was  much  of  the  former,  as  the  sequel  showed,  but  the  positive  con- 
viction of  the  forceful  few,  that  national  considerations  outweighed  every- 
thing else,  was  responsible  for  the  perpetuation  of  a  system  which  placed  a 
premium  on  neglect  and  finally  produced  an  intolerable  condition.  The 
constant  struggle  to  gain  a  party  advantage  caused  men  otherwise  well 
meaning  enough  to  wink  at  rascality.  It  was  of  more  consequence  to  them 
that  the  party  which  they  believed  was  in  the  right  should  control  the  polit- 
ical machinery  from  the  ground  up  than  that  the  city  should  be  well  gov- 
erned, and  the  abstention  of  the  respectable  element  from  participation  in 
local  politics  was  probably  due  as  much  to  the  feeling  that  they  were  power- 
less to  effect  a  reform  of  any  sort  while  a  great  crisis  was  impending  as  it 
was  to  indifference  begotten  by  absorption  in  personal  affairs. 

It  was  the  press  which  brought  matters  to  a  climax.  Like  in  the  dual 
system  of  Zoraster,  in  which  the  powers  of  light  and  darkness  are  in  con- 
stant conflict,  the  Fourth  Estate  during  the  years  preceding  the  outbreak  in 

1856,  wdiicli  taught  the  people  of  San  Francisco  that  de- 
Personal  cency,  when  it  chooses  to  assert  itself,  can  always  win,  was  in 
Scraps  a  perpetual  state  of  warfare.  Editors  attacked  each  other 
of  Editors         personally  in  the  columns  of  their  papers.     They  were  not 

content  to  make  their  assaults  upon  the  weaknesses  of  the 
opinions  of  their  rivals,  but  sought  to  emphasize  them  by  riddling  their 
characters.  It  all  resulted  in  much  bad  blood,  and  occasionally  in  en- 
counters, and  finally  in  the  murder  of  James  King  of  William,  which  pro- 
voked the  uprising  that  had  for  its  outcome  the  ascertainment  of  the  fact 
that  the  decent  and  orderly  elements  of  the  city  had  made  a  serious  blunder 
in  tamely  assuming  that  they  were  not  able  to  keep  the  criminal  classes 
under  control  with  the  ordinary  machinery  of  government. 


CHAPTER  IV 


DISORDERLY    ELEMENTS    AND    THE    VIGILANCE 
COMMITTEE    OF    1856. 

Events  That  Led  to  the  Committee's  Activities — Neglect  of  Civic  Duties  by  San 
Franciscans — Ballot-Box  Stuffing  and  Ballot  Boxes  With  False  Bottoms — 
Municipal  Extravagance — A  Big  Eeduction  in  Expenditures — Nothing  to  Show 
for  Money  Expended — David  Broderick's  Career  as  a  Municipal  Boss — Assaults 
of  James  King  of  William  on  David  C.  Broderick — A  Specimen  Bulletin  Edi- 
torial in  1855 — Sudden  Rise  in  the  Popularity  of  the  Bulletin — Popular  Appro- 
bation of  Personal  Journalism — Exposure  of  Jury  Corruption — The  Law  and 
Order  Party — Casey  Murders  James  King  of  William — The  Vigilance  Com- 
mittee Hangs  Cora  and  Casey — The  Herald  Ruined  by  Withdrawal  of  Advertis- 
ing Patronage — Earlier  Popularity  of  the  Herald — Formation  of  the  People's 
Party — Conventionality  Abhorred  by  Early  Editors  and  Reporters— Honest  Harry 
Meiggs — Reporters  Never  Suspected  His  Shortcomings — His  Unsuccessful  At- 
tempt to  Divert  Business  to  North  Beach — Fraudulent  Use  of  City  Scrip — His 
Flight  From  San  Francisco  and  His  Subsequent  Rehabilitation  in  Peru. 


ERY  few  occurrences  prior  to  tlie  Civil  War  attracted 
so  much  attention  or  were  more  discussed  than  the  do- 
ings of  the  Vigilance  Committee  of  1856.  It  is  a  re- 
markable fact,  however,  tliat,  although  the  chief  actors 
responsible  for  the  precipitation  of  the  trouble  were 
editors,  and  that  the  recrimination  which  led  to  the 
murder  of  James  King  of  William  was  provoked  by 
dissensions  regarding  tlie  distribution  of  Federal  pat- 
ronage, nearly  all  the  critics  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  and  in  Europe,  where 
the  affair  was  made  much  of,  confined  themselves  to  the  question  whether 
when  the  ordinary  safeguards  of  a  civilized  society  are  l^roken  down  by  the 
criminal  element  a  community  is  not  justified  in  setting  aside  the  machinery 
of  the  law  and  resorting  to  more  direct  methods  of  dealing  with  crime  and 
administering  justice  and  punishment. 

It  does  not  appear  in  the  vast  quantity  of  opinion  which  found  its  way 
into  print  that  any  of  those  responsible  for  its  expression  were  disposed  to 
place  the  blame  for  the  departure  from  the  methods  of  civilized  peoples  on 
tbe  orderly  elements  of  the  community.  There  were  some  who  in  a  feeble 
way  protested  against  mob  rule  and  asserted  that  laxity  in  the  administra- 
tion of  justice  is  always  attributable  to  the  loose  notions  of  the  society  in 
which  it  occurs,  but  the  majority  of  the  commentators  treated  the  uprising 
as  if  it  were  a  matter  of  the  people  of  San  Francisco  being  suddenly  put 
on  the  defensive  against  a  powerful  band  of  criminals  who  had  conspired  to 
rob  and  murder.    And  so  it  must  have  appeared  to  all  who  simply  regarded 

24 

4* 


Vigilance  Committee  of  1856  25 

the  uncontradicted  statement  tJiat  in  the  first  ten  months  of  1855  there  had 
heen  489  murders  in  California,  and  only  six  legal  executions. 

But  this  style  of  criticism  completely  ignored  the  conditions  which  led 
lip  to  the  crime  which  so  shocked  the  better  elements  of  the  community 
that  they  did  not  hesitate  to  accomplish  in  a  violent  and  illegal  manner  that 

which  they  could  have  brought  about  in  a  perfectly  orderly 
Inattention  fashion  had  they  displayed  a  tithe  of  the  energy  and  de- 
Civic  termination  to  prevent  the  encroachments  of   the  criminal 

Duty  class  that  they  did  in  hreaking  up  its  practices  when  they 

became  unbearable.  In  short,  it  disregarded  the  fact  that  the 
number  of  decent  citizens  was  very  much  larger  than  that  of  the  gang 
which  imposed  its  rule  upon  the  community,  an  assertion  amply  borne  out 
by  statistics,  and  the  outcome  of  the  uprising  which  showed  that  nothing 
more  was  necessary  than  that  citizens  who  desired  to  see  good  men  elected 
should  go  to  the  polls  and  vote,  and  see  to  it  that  their  votes  were  properly 
counted. 

Instead  of  such  a  course  being  pursued,  the  good  but  negligent  citizens 
preferred  to  adopt  a  shirking  attitude  which  they  defended  by  asking: 
"What  is  the  use?"     They  assumed  that  ballot-box  stuffing  could  not  be 

prevented,  and  stayed  away  from  the  polls  hecause  they 
I^^h*"  would  be  counted  out  in  any  event.    That  this  was  the  case  is 

Use  ^  shown  by  the  fact  that  it  was  charged  by  James  King  of  Wil- 

Attitude  Ham  that  Casey,  a  contributor  to  the   Sunday  Times,  who 

afterward  killed  him,  had  been  elected  a  Supervisor  in  a  dis- 
trict in  which  he  was  not  even  a  candidate,  the  implication  being  that  the 
box  was  stuffed  w^th  ballots  for  him  by  designing  men,  who  sought  to  put 
him  in  office  for  corrupt  purposes.  It  is  also  attested  by  the  spectacular 
exposure  of  a  ballot  box  with  a  false  bottom  made  after  the  Vigilantes 
began  to  clean  the  Augean  stables.  That  such  infamous  devices  to  defeat 
the  will  of  the  people  were  regularly  employed  was  notorious,  but  the  evil 
was  allowed  to  go  unchecked  despite  the  constant  demands  for  reform  from 
the  section  of  the  press  wdiicli  was  making  persistent  assaults  on  municipal 
corruption  which  went  unheeded,  perhaps  because  they  were  too  vehement 
and  were  open  to  the  suspicion  that  they  were  inspired  by  men  who  desired 
to  get  possession  of  the  offices. 

That  there  was  extravagance,  corruption  and  gross  mismanagement  of 
municipal  affairs  in  the  years  preceding  1856  is  undeniable.  The  expendi- 
tures of  the  city  in  1853  reached  $2,616,000.    That  amount  seems  small  by 

comparison  with  the  present  enormous  cost  of  city  govern- 
^^°^^     .  ment,  but  a  reform  administration  in  1857,  elected  after  the 

an^Mis^""        Vigilante  uprising,  managed  to  get  along  on  $353,000.    It  is 
management     true  that  critics  of  municipal  management  by  the  officials 

elected  by  the  People's  Party,  which  was  the  outcome  of  the 
affair  of  1856,  declared  that  parsimony  and  neglect  marked  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  reformers,  and  that  they  did  nothing  for  the  city,  but  their 
friends  were  able  to  retort  that  prior  to  1856,  although  large  sums  were 
annually  expended,  there  was  nothing  to  show  for  the  expenditures.  There 
were  other  abuses  than  those  complained  of  by  that  portion  of  the  early 
press  which  concerned  itself  about  the  demands  made  on  the  taxpayer,  and 
they  were  unquestionably  more  demoralizing  than  those  which  came  m 
for  the  severest  censure.    They  were,  however,  condoned  by  the  newspapers 


26  Journalism  in  California 

and  the  people  because  they  were  generally  practiced  at  the  time,  but  their 
efTects  were  more  disastrous  than  those  produced  by  the  grafting  propensity, 
for  they  were  chiefly  responsible  for  the  selection  of  the  venal  and  ineffective 
Judges,  who  did  not  hesitate  to  pollute  the  fountain  of  justice  to  pay  for 
their  appointments.  As  already  pointed  out,  the  tremendous  influence  on 
the  popular  mind  exerted  by  the  burning  questions  growing  out  of  the  ag- 
gressiveness of  the  slaveholding  oligarchy  made  men  subordinate  local  to 
national  issues;  it  also  tended  to  the  acceptance  of  a  political  theory  some- 
what resembling  that  contained  in  the  assumption  that  the  end  justifies  the 
means  adopted  to  effect  its  accomplishment.  The  people  were  desperately 
in  earnest;  party  feeling  ran  high  and  there  was  no  disposition  to  shrink 
from  practices,  no  matter  how  questionable,  which  voters  thought  would 
insure  the  success  of  the  cause  they  advocated. 

The  singla-r  anomaly  of  a  man  with  professedly  high  ideals  resorting 
to  the  basest  political  methods  can  be  explained  only  by  assuming  that  he 
felt  certain  that  voters  desirous  of  achieving  the  object  aimed  at  by  him 
would  view  his  actions  with  tolerance.  David  C.  Broderick, 
A^ins^^  whose  career  as  a  boss  and  a  legislator,  and  his  tragic  death 

David  C.  on  "the  field  of  honor,"  fill  a  large  space  in  the  annals  of  the 

Broderick  city,  was  conspicuous  as  an  advocate  of  free  labor.     He  was 

untiring  in  his  opposition  to  the  efforts  to  commit  California 
to  the  cause  of  slavery  and  earned  the  enmity  of  the  class  devoted  to  the 
extension  of  the  institution,  the  members  of  which,  fcuriously  enough,  were 
by  no  means  all  Southerners,  or  directly  interested  in  that  which  they 
advocated.  There  were  plenty  of  what  in  the  parlance  of  the  period  Avere 
called  "dough  faces"  in  San  Francisco  who  were  apparently  unconscious  of 
the  fact  that  they  were  looked  upon  as  "mudsills,"  although  they  were  told 
so  frequently  enough  by  the  anti-slavery  editors  to  become  acquainted  with 
the  Southern  point  of  view,  had  they  only  taken  the  trouble  to  read  what 
was  said  about  them.  But  they  did  not.  It  was  the  custom  in  those  days, 
as  it  is  at  present,  for  men  to  read  that  with  which  they  sympathized  and 
approved,  and  to  turn  from  that  which  is  distasteful.  Consequently,  the 
diatribes  against  Broderick  were  ignored  and  disregarded  by  many  who  did 
not  wish  to  believe  the  accusations  brought  against  him.  They  by  no  means 
came  from  one  source.  He  had  many  enemies  in  both  camps,  almost  from 
the  beginning  of  his  political  career ;  but  toward  its  close  they  were  chiefly 
composed  of  the  active  adherents  of  the  pro-slavery  cause  or  the  members  of 
the  "Federal  Brigade,"  the  name  bestowed  upon  the  office-holders  appointed 
in  Washington,  who  were  almost  wholly  Southerners,  and  many  of  them  of 
the  sort  designated  as  "carpet  baggers"  by  the  people  of  the  South  during 
the  reconstruction  period  following  the  Civil  War.  Before  Broderick  began 
to  be  esteemed  as  a  champion,  he  was  the  object  of  denunciation  more 
severe  than  any  to  which  modern  readers  are  accustomed,  and  candor 
compels  the  admission  that  the  charges  brought  against  him  could  have 
been  substantiated  in  a  court  of  law  had  he  made  the  mistake  of  seeking 
redress  through  such  an  agency. 

Foremost  among  Broderick's  assailants  was  James  King  of  William 
of  the  Bulletin,  who  began  his  assaults  very  shortly  after  commencing  the 
publication  of  that  paper.  No  better  illustration  of  journalistic  methods  on 
the  eve  of  the  Vigilante  uprising  in  1856  can  be  furnished  than  that  which 
a  few  quotations  from  King's  announcement  to  the  public  and  his  attacks 


JAMES   KING   OF  WILLIAM 
Murdered  by  James  P.  Casey  in  1856. 


PICTORIAI 


nm  TAiK. 


BAN    rH.\N<- IMC-o,  •^\Ttri(I.AY.  JtO.Y    r.. 


y^  ■  '%>nv  nnh  0r^tr  Jforcfs.  frj> 


H'  ^*r  »t.l.'*-.A-4^^Hj,|       ^_^' 


|.a^    »«(   a^'£»  (^  te^fc* 


<r.   bir4    [t.nimrpar  •(■I  turf  »>« 


:^ilouuieJ!»  Uatalllon  In  lilctton. 


^^  ^^  CHARGE  UP  WASHHI6T0N  STIfflT. 


fi>«t\u-<3A3^,  xuxie  stxm\,  xenso. 


PICTORIAL  TOWN  TALK,  WITH  AN  ACCOLtnT  OF  THE 
VIGILANCE  COMMITTEE'S  DOINGS 


Vigilance  Committee  of  1856  27 

on  Brodoriek  afford.  In  his  salutatoiy,  the  editor  of  the  Bulletin  told  hi? 
readers  tliat  necessity,  not  choice,  had  driven  him  into  the  experiment  of 
])ubliphing  a  jxiper,  and  that  he  was  "fully  sensible  of  the 
J^mes*Kine  of  ^^^^'  ^^  ^  newspaper  enterprise  as  an  investment  of  money." 
William  "I'^s  public  scarcely  needed  to  be  informed  that  King's  news- 

on  Broderick  paper  venture  Avas  in  no  sense  a  business  enterprise,  for  it  was 
well  informed  concerning  his  grievances,  which  were  con- 
nected with  what  he  deemed  the  imjust  treatment  of  his  brother  by  the 
politicians  in  the  matter  of  a  Federal  appointment,  and  his  further  an- 
nouncement that  he  intended  to  use  his  paper  for  the  purpose  of  meeting 
his  enemies  with  weapons  of  their  own  kind  was  joyously  accepted  by  that 
part  of  the  community  which  delighted  in  recrimination  of  the  sort  de- 
scribed by  the  term  "making  the  fur  fly,"  while  those  who  believed  in  his 
integrity  and  honesty  of  purpose,  about  which  there  appears  to  have  been  no 
question,  despite  the  fact  that  the  motives  for  some  of  his  attacks  suggested 
])ersonal  animus,  looked  forward  with  eagerness  to  the  effecting  of  reforms 
through  the  instrumentality  of  an  untrammeled  press. 

"It  has  been  whisperecl  to  us,"  wrote  King,  in  his  salutatory,  "that 
some  parties  are  about  pitching  into  us.  We  hope  they  will  think  better 
of  it.  We  make  it  a  rule  to  keep  out  of  a  scrape  as  long  as  possible;  but, 
if  forced  into  one,  we  'ar'  thar',  entiende?'"  This  warning 
EdftorSr^"^  or  "defi"  was  issued  on  October  8,  1855,  and  promptly  drew 
of  Early  ^^e,  and  a  week  later  the  battle  was  on.    One  of  the  very  first 

Days  objects  of  King's  attacks  was  Broderick,  who,  in  accordance 

with  the  habit  of  the  time,  he  nicknamed  David  Catline 
Broderick.  His  arraignment  of  the  politician  was  a  piece  of  coarse  invec- 
tive, every  line  of  which  was  calculated  to  incite  violence.  lie  charged  that 
he  was  endeavoring  to  have  himself  elected  for  the  purpose  of  accomplish- 
ing unworthy  ends,  and  accused  him  of  complicity  in  the  job  by  which  the 
Jenny  Lind  Theater  was  unloaded  on  the  municipality  to  be  converted 
into  a  City  Hall,  although  unfit  for  the  purpose.  Other  swindles  and 
robberies  were  laid  at  his  door,  and  he  was  plumply  accused  of  ballot-box 
stutFmg  and  other  corrupt  electioneering  practices.  On  the  following  day 
King  continued  his  tirade,  specifically  indicating  cases  of  men  having  paid 
considerable  sums  of  money  to  Broderick  for  nominations,  which  were 
equivalent  to  an  election,  and  paying  for  them  nearly  as  much  as  the  salary 
attached  to  the  office.  Another  attack  he  concluded  Avith  the  remark: 
'We  have  every  confidence  that  the  people  Avill  stand  by  us  in  this  contest; 
and,  if  Ave  can  only  escape  David  C.  Broderick's  hired  bullies  a  little  longer, 
Ave  Avill  turn  this  city  inside  out,  but  Avhat  we  Avill  expose  the  corruption 
and  malfeasance  of  her  officiary." 

The  allusion  to  "hired  bullies"  Avas  not  a  figure  of  speech  in  this  case. 
James  King  of  William  knew  Avhat  he  might  expect.  He  had  no  apprehension 
of  a  libel  suit,  for  the  object  of  his  assault  did  not  dare  to  tempt  the  proof 
Avhich  he  kncAV  aa^ouM  be  forthcoming  in  a  court,  even  one  in 
^^®     .  Avhich  justice  miscarried  as  often  as  it  did  in  San  Francisco 

Hired  about  this  time.     But  the  bullies  did  not  meddle  Avith  the 

Bullies  bold  editor,  probably  because  they  saAv  in  the  rapidly  increas- 

ing popularity  of  tlie  new  journalistic  A'enture  a  danger  flag 
the  sight  of  Avliich  gave  then  a  premonition  of  wliat  folloAved  a  few  months 
later.    The  sudden  rise  in  popularity  of  the  Bulletin  gives  an  insight  into 


Journalism  in  California 


tlie  kind  of  juurnalisni  ^\llil•h  met  approval  in  185-j,  and  at  the  same  time 
enlightens  us  concerning  the  reading  hahits  of  the  puhlic,  for  we  are  in- 
formed that  in  les-^s  than  a  montli  the  circulation  of  King's  paper  was  2500, 
and  that  hefore  the  end  of  Decemher  it  reached  nearly  ooOO  copies  daily,  a 
larger  number  than  was  circulated  by  any  other  newspaper  in  the  city. 
There  are  no  accurate  statistics  of  population  for  the  year  mentioned,  but  it 
is  probable  that  San  Francisco  in  the  closing  months  of  1855  contained 
55,000  inhabitants.  There  had  been  an  attempt  at  enumeration  two  years 
earlier,  which  indicated  that  the  State  had  about  100,000  population,  and 
it  was  estimated  that  during  the  winter  of  1853-54  at  least  50,000  lived  in 
the  city,  a  fair  proportion  of  this  number  being  miners  who  early  developed 
the  habit  of  making  their  way  to  the  bay  when  the  weather  prevented  mining. 

The  degree  of  popularity  attained  by  the  Bulletin  testifies  to  the  ap- 
probation of  a  style  of  journalism  scarcely  tolerated  nowadays.  The  rivals 
of  James  King  of  William  were  no  less  vituperative,  but  his  personalities 
are  drawn  upon  for  illustration,  because,  at  the  time,  and 
Approbation  ^-^j,  ^  ]ong  while  after,  he  was  extolled  as  a  model  editor.  His 
Personal  contemporaries  might  have  been  persuaded  that  he  was  capa- 

Journalism  ble  of  making  mistakes,  but  they  were  profoundly  convinced 
that  his  methods  were  sound  and  productive  of  good  results. 
They  found  nothing  shocking  in  his  comments  upon  court  procedure,  and 
when  Cora  was  on  trial  for  killing  Eichardson  and  the  jury  was  being 
impaneled  he  was  applauded  for  saying  in  the  Bulletin :  "Look  well  to  the 
jury.  And,  again,  what  we  propose  is  this:  If  the  jury  is  packed,  either 
hang  the  Sheriff  or  drive  him  out  of  town  and  make  him  resign.  If  Billy 
Mulligan  lets  his  friend  Cora  escape,  hang  Billy  ]\Iulligan  or  drive  him 
into  banishment."  Cora  was  a  professional  gambler  who  had  a  quarrel  with 
a  man  named  Richardson  in  a  saloon  and  shot  him  on  the  18th  of  Novem- 
ber, 1855.  The  murder  was  not  particularly  notable  of  itself,  but,  as  an 
addition  to  the  long  list  of  the  preceding  months  in  city  and  State,  it  made 
an  iiiipression  which  was  greatly  strengthened  by  the  comments  of  the 
Bulletin,  but  which  would  have  weakened  and  died  aAvay  if  the  editor  had 
not  boldly  drawn  attention  to  the  attempts  made  by  the  friends  of  the 
murderer  to  secure  immunity  for  him  by  corrupt  methods. 

It  was  openly  hinted  that  a  large  sum  of  money  had  been  subscribed, 
the  amount  mentioned  being  $-10,000,  which  was  to  be  employed  to  fix  the 
court  or  buy  a  jury,  and  color  was  lent  to  the  rumors  by  the  repeated  delays 
in  the  trial  of  the  case.  The  murder,  like  the  remaining  488 
Corruption  recorded  in  the  "Annals  of  San  Francisco,"  might  have 
of  _  passed  unnoticed,  and  gone  unpunished,  had  not  James  King 

Juries  q£  "WiHiai-,^  ]q{  loose  his  stream  of  invective  which  washed 

away  tlie  indi (Terence  of  an  apathetic  and  nearly  cowed  pub- 
lic, and  called  forth  in  its  stead  one  of  the  most  remarkable  exhibitions  of 
virile  dealing  on  primitive  lines  ever  witnessed  in  this  or  any  other  country. 
If  the  outcome  had  not  been  so  tragic,  the  investigator  might  almost  be 
tempted  to  say  that  it  was  the  result  of  editorial  "scrapping,"  but  it  requires 
no  extraordinary  penetration  to  discover  that  while  James  King  of  William 
was  the  rod  that  attracted  the  lightning  it  was  the  suddenly  awakened  con- 
sciousness of  a  long  indifferent  community  that  provided  the  tinder  which 
started  a  conflagi-afion  that  burned  with  such  fierceness  it  extinguished 
civic  enterprise  while  sweeping  away  criminality. 


Vigilance  Committee  of  1856  29 

It  is  not  conceivable  tliat  all  of  those  who  lifted  up  their  voices  in  dis- 
approval of  the  Bulletin's  harsh  strictures  sympathized  with  the  criminal 
class.     There  were  plenty  who  in  arraying  themselves  on  the  side  of  what 
they   called   "law   and   order"   believed   sincerely   that   they 
The  Law  were    fighting   behind   the    bulwark   of   modern   civilization. 

Order  They   may  have  deprecated   the  tendency   of   the  courts   to 

Party  encourage  criminals  by  postponements  and  other  lax  prac- 

tices, but  they  felt  certain  that  if  the  ordinary  processes  were 
dispensed  with  society  would  be  a  rudderless  ship  and  surely  go  on  the 
rocks.  But  those  who  sympathized  with  Casey  were  not  among  this  num- 
ber. Many  articles  in  rival  papers  dealing  with  the  subject  of  delay  were 
more  a  defense  of  evil  practices  than  of  orderly  procedure,  and  some  editors 
were  quick  to  align  themselves  on  the  side  of  those  accused  of  shortcomings. 
It  is  not  surprising,  considering  the  disposition  to  indulge  in  personalities 
which  had  been  the  fashion  for  years  that  when  King  assailed  the  Federal 
brigade  Casey  should  have  hastened  to  its  aid,  and  that  he  should  have 
employed  the  favorite  weapon  of  the  period  in  the  weekly  paper  to  which 
he  contributed  so  frequently  that  he  was  regarded  as  its  editor.  Unfortu- 
nately, the  champion  of  the  turbulent  element  had  a  history  like  many  an- 
other man  who  had  found  his  way  to  California  when  the  fame  of  the  new 
El  Dorado  was  spreading  about  the  globe. 

His  story  was  not  unknown  to  San  Franciscans.  The  fact  that  he  had 
made  a  slip  in  his  old  home  in  New  York  State  had  been  brought  out  in  the 
course  of  a  trial,  and  King,  when  the  fight  waxed  hot,  was  not  slow  to  use 
the  advantage  it  gave  him.  Cora  had  shot  Richardson  in 
Wiliia^^"^  °^  November,  1855  and  nearly  six  months  later  he  still  remained 
Assails  James  ^^ntried  and  there  was  every  reason  to  believe  that  he  never 
P.  Casey  would  be  convicted,  and  King  said  so  in  plain  terms.     Casey 

was  extremely  virulent  in  criticising  the  attitude  of  King, 
indulging  in  many  personalities,  and  the  Bulletin  came  back  at  him  in  this 
wise :  "The  fact  that  Casey  has  been  an  inmate  of  Sing  Sing  prison  in 
New  York  is  not  an  offense  against  the  laws  of  the  State;  nor  is  the  fact 
of  his  having  stuffed  himself  through  the  ballot  box  as  elected  to  the 
Board  of  Supervisors  from  a  district  where  it  is  said  he  was  not  even  a 
candidate,  any  justification  why  Mr.  Bagley  should  shoot  Casey,  however 
richly  the  latter  may  deserve  having  his  neck  stretched  for  such  fraud  upon 
the  people."  This  assault  appeared  on  May  14,  1856,  and  King  had  no 
particular  reason  for  believing  that  it  would  cause  serious  trouble,  for  in 
the  preceding  November  he  had  reproduced  from  the  California  Chronicle 
a  strong  denunciatory  article  in  which  the  methods  by  which  Casey  was 
elected  Supervisor  were  referred  to,  and  in  which  his  Sing  Sing  record  was 
paraded  without  any  harm  ensuing.  But  the  friends  of  Cora,  the  gambler, 
saw  an  opportunity  to  create  a  diversion  and  they  took  the  perilous  course 
of  instigating  the  assailed  politician  to  avenge  "himself,  which  he  did  by 
shooting  King  as  he  left  his  office. 

The  towTi  flamed  up  at  once.  The  committee  called  upon  to  deal  with 
the  troublesome  characters  in  1851  had  maintained  some  sort  of  an  organi- 
zation during  the  intervening  five  years  and  was  swiftly  brought  into  shape 
for  action.  Officers  were  chosen,  and  they  formed  companies  of  well  armed 
men  who  made  it  perfectly  clear  by  their  attitude  that  they  were  going  to 
take  the  law  into  their  own  hands  and  dispense  with  the  formalities  of  the 


30  Journalism  in  California 

courts.    King,  although  the  ^vound  inflicted  l)y  Casey  proved  fatal,  lingered 
six  days  after  being  shot.     Meanwhile,  the  Vigilantes  had  taken  Cora  and 

Casey  from  the  custotly  of  the  Sheriff.  The  latter  made  some 
The  Murder  resistance,  but  was  persuaded  by  the  determined  attitude  of 
James  King  ^''^  members  of  the  committee  to  deliver  the  prisoners  into 
of  William       their  keeping.     For  a  while  there  were  signs  of  a  conflict 

between  the  persons  who  called  themselves  the  Law  and  Order 
party,  in  which  the  State  authorities  showed  a  disposition  to  participate,  but 
the  determined  front  presented  by  the  aroused  citizens  and  the  vacillation  of 
the  Governor  prevented  a  serious  collision. 

The  committee,  which  awaited  the  result  of  the  wound  inflicted  by 
Casey,  as  soon  as  the  death  of  James  King  of  William  was  announced  by 
the  tolling  of  the  bell  of  the  Monumental  Engine  Company,  at  once  strung 

up  the  two  murderers  side  by  side  on  gibbets,  where  they 
Casev^Haneed  ^^^^^  allowed  to  swing  for  several  days  to  serve  as  a  warning  to 
Ijy  the  ^'^G  wretched  crew  who  had  so  long  terrorized  San  Francisco. 

Vigilantes         According  to  the   accounts   of   the  journals  which  survived 

the  storm,  the  lesson  was  a  salutary  one  and  was  taken  to 
heart  by  the  disorderly  element.  Nugent's  paper,  the  Herald,  which 
strenuously  championed  the  Law  and  Order  party  and  unsparingly  de- 
nounced the  committee,  was  ruined  by  the  concerted  withdrawal  of  the 
advertising  patronage  of  the  business  community,  and  soon  ceased  publica- 
tion. This  action  did  not  meet  the  unanimous  approval  of  the  Vigilance 
Committee.  It  was  deprecated  by  William  T.  Coleman,  a  prominent  mer- 
chant, who  was  chosen  to  head  the  banded  protestants  against  official  cor- 
ruption and  laxity,  and  who  argued  that  no  good  results  could  be  expected 
from  direct  or  indirect  attempts  to  curb  the  lilierty  of  the  press.  He  did 
not  prevail,  however,  and  the  Herald  was  sacrificecl. 

The  striking  fact  that  Coleman  should  have  opposed  the  extirpation 
of  the  Herald  suggests  that  its  general  course,  apart  from  its  unfortunate 
attempt  to  defencl  or  apologize  for  the  shortcomings  of  the  courts,  was  not 

reprehensible,  and  an  examination  of  its  columns  confirms 
Befor^^the*       ^^^^^  ^^^^^ '  ^^^^  attained  to  considerable  popularity  before 

Murder  of        ^'^^   Bulletin  came   on   the   scene   and   was   regarded   as  the 
King  leading  paper.     It  was  undoubtedly  the  best  edited  daily  up 

to  the  time  of  its  collapse,  and  the  probabilities  favor  the 
belief  that  Coleman's  opposition  to  killing  it  were  based  on  the  belief  that 
the  motives  of  those  who  advocated  that  course  were  inspired  more  by 
hostility  to  its  political  course  than  to  any  other  cause.  Perhaps  no  ether 
phase  of  the  1856  Vigilante  uprising  has  presented  greater  difficulties  to 
the  critic  than  the  forcible  extinction  of  the  Herald,  but  it  does  not  appear 
that  any  of  its  contemporaries  mourned, its  loss.  Nor  is  there  any  evidence 
in  their  columns  of  a  consciousness  that  the  problem  which  the  Vigilantes 
were  called  upon  to  deal  with  M'as  due  to  incivicism.  Through  them  all 
there  runs  the  singular  assumption  that  by  some  extraordinary  process, 
which  is  not  clearly  described,  the  criminal  element  gained  control,  and 
that  the  only  ]iossiblc  way  to  shake  off  the  incubus  was  the  one  adopted. 

Occasionally,  there  was  found  in  the  columns  of  the  papers  warring 
on  municipal  extravagance  and  corruption  a  recognition  of  the  true  cause 
of  the  insolence  of  the  law-defying  class.  The  charge  was  made  that  men 
who  styled  themselves  good  citizens  were  too  busy  attending  to  their  own 


WILT.TAIM  T.   COLEMAN 
Leader  of  Vigilance  Committee  of  1S56. 


I 


Vigilance  Committee  of  1856  31 

affairs  to  bother  themselves  about  those  of  the  community.    Although  there 
are  no  quotable  expressions  of  the  belief  that  the  respectable  element  was 

numerous  enough  to  beat  the  disorderly  at  the  polls  it  must 
Element  Not  ^^'^^^  existed,  for  it  was  no  infrequent  thing  for  an  editor 
Preponderant  before  1856  to  draw  upon  the  affairs  with  the  Hounds  in  1851 
in  1856  to  support  the  assumption  that  all  that  would  be  necessary 

to  bring  about  a  change  would  be  to  imitate  the  example  of 
the  Vigilance  Committee  formed  in  the  earlier  year.  Obviously,  a  con- 
viction of  this  sort  could  not  have  obtained  unless  those  entertaining  it  were 
convinced  that  the  people  desirous  of  law  and  order  were  in  the  majority. 
And  such  was  the  case,  as  was  shown  in  the  sequel.  After  the  lynching 
of  Cora  and  Casey,  a  party  which  concerned  itself  exclusively  with  muni- 
cipal affairs  was  formed,  and  its  adherents  had  no  trouble  in  maintaining 
order  at  the  polls  and  reducing  election  irregularities  to  a  minimum. 

Perhaps  another  cause  may  have  operated  more  potently  to  prevent 
good  government  than  is  generally  suspected  by  the  present  generation. 
There  was  unquestionably  in  the  early  fifties  a  bonhomie  with  which  we  of 

the  present  day  have  little  familiarity.  The  columns  of  the 
Too  Much  newspaper  press  of  the  fifties  teem  with  evidence  of  its 
in  Early  existence.     Throughout  their  pages  there  was  an  astonishing 

Days  al)sence   of  conventionality.     Men  were   spoken  of  by  their 

first  names,  and  their  popularity  could  be  gauged  by  the 
friendly  touch  given  by  the  writers  for  the  press.  The  prefix  "Mr."  was 
often  used  to  suggest  that  the  bearer  was  just  a  little  too  good  for  San 
Francisco,  while  the  hearty  "Jack"  or  "Bill,"  and  the  caressing  "Harry" 
and  "Charlie"  conveyed  to  the  reader  the  idea  that  there  was  something 
genial  about  those  who  bore  those  and  similar  appellations.  One  of  the 
most  remarkable  figures  in  the  early  history  of  San  Francisco,  it  is  asserted, 
was  enabled  to  pull  the  wool  over  the  eyes  of  the  people  for  a  long  time 
because  no  one  could  possibly  suspect  a  man  known  to  every  one  by  his 
first  name,  to  which  the  community  had  prefixed  "honest,"  of  being  any- 
thing else  than  he  was  popularly  supposed  to  be. 

When  Hari-y  Meiggs,  on  the  6th  of  October,  1854,  fled  from  San 
Francisco  owing  about  $800,000  the  community  was  astounded.  The 
press  shared  in  the  general  amazement,  for  the  popularity  of  the  man  was 

so  great  that  no  one,  least  of  all  the  reporters,  thought  of 
pr^ht    f  regarding  as  singular  the  fact  that  he  was  in  such  trouble  that 

Harry  °  he  was  borrowing  money  at  a  frightfully  high  rate  of  interest ; 

Meiggs  nor  does  it  appear  that  the  commercial  and  financial  editors 

of  the  time  concerned  themselves  very  greatly  respecting  the 
character  of  the  securities  offered  by  him,  for,  notwithstanding  the  strong 
inclination  of  the  newspapers  to  mix  in  personal  affairs,  the  fact  that  he 
was  hawking  scrip  whose  fraudulent  character  should  have  been  easily 
detected,  he  succeeded  in  imposing  a  large  amount  of  it  upon  easy-going 
lenders  of  money.  Meiggs  was  a  great  promoter,  and  started  his  meteoric 
career  by  an  attempt  to  divert  the  business  of  San  Francisco  from  the 
neighborhood  in  which  it  first  established  itself  to  North  Beach.  He  was 
energetic  beyond  comparison,  and  from  the  day  when  he  landed  in  San 
Francisco  in  1850  he  was  constantly  pushing  some  enterprise  or  other. 
When  he  conceived  the  idea  of  1)Ooming  Xorth  Beach  he  built  a  road 
about  the  base  of  Telegraph  hill  to  Clarke's  point,  where  he  had  invested 


32  Journalism  in  California 

a  considerable  sum  of  money,  and  constructed  a  wharf  2000  feet  in  length 
from  the  foot  of  Powell  street,  which  extended  in  the  direction  of  Alcatraz 
island.  To  forward  his  project  of  putting  Xortli  Beach  on  the  business 
map  he  promoted  the  grading  and  improvement  of  many  streets  in  the 
section  he  was  trying  to  boom.  In  pushing  through  these  various  under- 
takings he  incurred  the  hea^7■  obligations  which  caused  his  ruin. 

At  the  time  he  was  operating,  street  work  was  paid  for  by  warrants 
drawn  on  the  city  treasury,  which  were  signed  by  the  Mayor  and  Con- 
troller. In  order  to  facilitate  matters  and  save  trouble,  the  latter  official 
was  in  the  habit  of  signing  entire  books  of  the  blank  war- 
Loose  rants,  and  he  found  no  difficulty  in  persuading  the  city's 
Municipal  chief  executive  to  lend  his  signature  in  the  same  loose  fashion. 
Methods  Qj^g  q£  these  books  was  obtained  by  Meiggs  from  the  clerk  of 
the  Controller,  who  was  a  particular  friend  of  the  energetic 
boomer.  As  there  was  no  money  in  the  street  fund  at  the  time,  Meiggs 
experienced  no  particular  difficulty  in  negotiating  the  fraudulent  warrants, 
the  unsuspicious  money  lenders  not  taking  the  trouble  to  inquire  whether 
those  in  whose  favor  they  were  drawn  hatl  performed  the  work  or  whether 
there  was  anything  due  them.  It  may  seem  extraordinary  to  a  more 
cautious  race  of  bankers  that  the  value  of  the  securities  was  not  challenged 
until  the  crash  came,  but  the  accounts  agree  that  Meiggs'  interest  account 
had  climbed  up  to  about  $30,000  a  month  before  an  investigation  was  made 
which  caused  the  exposure  which  he  anticipated  by  his  flight.  With  the 
aid  of  his  brother,  he  made  his  escape  on  a  vessel  which  landed  him  in 
Valparaiso,  Chile.  It  was  supposed  at  the  time  that  he  had  carried  away 
a  large  sum  of  money,  but  there  is  no  good  reason  for  questioning  the  state- 
ment made  by  him  later  that  when  he  reached  the  South  American  city 
he  had  only  $8000,  and  that  before  he  got  a  fresh  start  in  life  he  was 
reduced  to  the  necessity  of  pawning  his  watch. 

When  Meiggs  did  get  a  start  he  soon  accumulated  a  great  fortune. 
The  amount  of  his  accumulations  was  said  to  be  nearly  a  hundred  millions, 
but  that  is  probably  an  exaggeration.  Whatever  the  sum,  however,  he  used 
a  part  of  it  to  satisfy  every  creditor  in  full.  Peru,  the  country 
Harry  jj^  which  he  operated  as  a  railroad  contractor,  was  not  con- 

Tries  to  genial  to  Meiggs  and  he  experienced  a  great  desire  to  return 

Come  Back  to  California,  and  to  that  end  he  sought  while  the  Legislature 
of  1873-74  was  in  session  to  have  that  body  pass  an  act 
ordering  all  indictments  against  him  to  be  dismissed,  and  forbidding  future 
Grand  Juries  reopening  the  cases  against  him.  The  proposal  met  with  no 
adverse  criticism  and  the  act  passed  the  Legislature  by  a  practically  unani- 
mous vote,  but  Governor  Newton  Booth  interposed  his  veto,  rebuking  the 
legislators  for  their  complaisance,  and  pointing  out  that  the  act  of  im- 
munity, if  adopted,  would  be  regarded  as  a  scandalous  exhibition  of  defer- 
ence to  wealth  as  well  as  an  unconstitutional  usurpation  of  power.  While 
the  State  was  saved  the  disgrace  of  condoning  felony  by  legislation,  the 
comment  of  the  press  shows  that  the  people  at  large  saw  nothing  extraor- 
dinary in  the  proceeding.  It  would,  however,  be  a  mistake  to  assume  that 
the  community  was  governed  by  any  other  motive  than  the  belief  that  Harry 
meant  to  do  no  wrong,  and  that  he  was  the  victim  of  a  perfectly  laudable- 
ambition  to  boom  a  part  of  the  town  in  whose  future  he  had  great  faith. 


CHAPTER  V 


THE    CALM    THAT    FOLLOWED    THE    VIGILANTE 
STOEM    OF    1856. 

Decent  Elements  of  Society  Assume  Control  of  Affairs — The  People's  Party — Drift- 
ing in  a  Political  Sargossa  Sea — A  Nominating  Junta — The  People  Saved  the 
Trouble  of  Selecting  Candidates — Eeduction  of  Municipal  Expenditures  in  1857 — 
Bulletin's  Advocacy  of  Pay-as-You-Go  Municipal  Government — Kewspapers 
Easily  Founded — Many  Journals  Live  a  Short  Life — Limited  Circulation  of 
Early  Papers — The  Contents  of  a  Paper  More  Important  Than  the  Number 
of  Copies  Printed — Per  Capita  Consumption  of  Papers  Very  Small — A  Host  of 
Forgotten  Once  Popular  Journals — Newspapers  Make  a  Limited  Appeal  to 
Readers — Small  Forces  Required  to  Get  Out  Daily  Papers — A  Limited  Police 
Force  and  Scant  Information  Concerning  Crime  and  Criminals — The  Editor  and 
the  Field  of  Honor— Gentle-Minded  Men  Who  Called  Each  Other  Hard  Names— 
The  Attention  Paid  to  Dramatic  Criticism — Early  Boosters  of  California's  Cli- 
mate— California  Spoken  of  as  God's  Country. 


HE  storm  is  always  followed  by  a  calm.  When  the  fury 
of  the  Vigilante  gale  had  subsided  there  was  quiet  sail- 
ing for  a  long  time.  It  was  speedily  discovered  that 
the  decent  elements  of  the  city  were  greatly  in  the  ma- 
jority, and  that  it  was  only  necessary  for  them  to  go  to 
the  polls  on  election  day  and  exercise  a  moderate  degree 
of  watchfulness  to  prevent  the  abuses  which  had  enabled 
the  disorderly  classes  to  put  venal  and  incompetent  men 
in  office.  Out  of  the  Vigilante  episode  there  came  a  municipal  party  which 
retained  power  for  many  years,  and  to  recur  to  the  nautical  metaphor, 
when  it  ol)tained  control,  it  trimmed  its  sails  in  such  a  way  that  in  order 
to  catch  the  breeze  of  popularity  it  steered  the  municipality  into  a  Sargossa 
sea  of  its  own  creation,  in  which  it  drifted  about  for  many  years  without 
getting  anywhere  in  particular.  This  new  organization  was  named  the 
People's  party,  and  there  was  not  the  slightest  doubt  in  the  minds  of  its 
creators  that  the  appellation  fitted  it  perfectly,  despite  the  fact  that  the 
people  had  no  other  duty  imposed  on  them  than  that  of  going  to  the  polls 
and  voting  for  the  candidates  put  forward  by  a  junta  which  derived  its 
original  authority  from  the  Vigilance  Committee  and  finally  converted  it- 
self into  a  self-perpetuating  organization. 

If  the  object  of  government  is  to  achieve  the  results  aimed  at  by  the 
stable  elements  of  a  community,  the  People's  party,  called  into  existence  by 
the  desire  to  do  away  with  corruption  and  extravagance  in  the  conduct  of 
municipal  affairs  which  had  marked  the  years  prior  to  1856,  must  be 
credited  with  accomplishing  that  result.     Perhaps  a  combination  of  circura- 

33 


Journalism  in  California 


stances  assisted  in  furthering  the  aims  of  the  promoters  of  the  party,  cliief 
among  which  were  the  reduction  of  expenditures  and  the  elimination  of 
the  disorderly  classes.  Eighteen  fifty-seven  was  a  year  of 
Municipal  great  tinancial  stress  throughout  the  Union,  and,  despite  the 
Cxit  f'at't   that    California   was   still    producing   gold   on   a   great 

Down  scale,  San  Francisco  did  not  escape  the  eli'ects  of  the  general 

prostration.  Business  became  very  dull  and  it  grew  increas- 
ingly difficult  for  the  parasites  of  society  who  had  flocked  to  the  city  to 
nuiintain  themselves.  And,  as  is  usually  the  case,  with  decreasing  pros- 
perity there  was  decreased  insolence  on  the  part  of  the  "swell  mob,"  the 
designation  applied  by  the  press  to  those  who  if  the  police  Avere  disposed 
to  ask  pertinent  questions  could  not  always  give  a  satisfactory  account  of 
themselves.  The  depression  would  naturally  have  called  for  retrenchment, 
but  the  inclination  harmonized  so  perfectly  with  the  necessity  no  effort 
whatever  Avas  recfuired  to  effect  the  extraordinary  reduction  already  noted. 
Had  the  condition  of  affairs  produced  by  this  resort  to  the  policy  of 
retrenchment  endured  for  a  short  period  only,  it  would  possess  no  special 
interest  for  the  student  of  civics,  but  it  extended  over  many  years.  It  there- 
fore becomes  an  object  of  inquiry  to  determine  whether  the 
^      .        .  strict  pursuit  of  economy  was  due  to  the  lessons  administered 

Policy  ^0  ^^^^  extravagant  and  corruptly  inclined  by  the  Vigilance 

Adopted  Committee  or  to  the  adoption  of  narrow  views  concerning  the 

functions  of  municipal  government.  A  very  little  research 
makes  it  perfectly  clear  that  the  latter  played  by  far  the  biggest  part  in 
the  course  adopted  after  1857,  and  continued  during  many  years.  There 
is  no  question  about  the  influence  exerted  by  the  uprising.  It  was  most 
salutary,  as  may  be  inferred  from  the  tremendous  reduction  of  expenditures 
for  local  purposes  already  quoted.  It  is  inconceivable  that  the  depression 
of  1857,  no  matter  how  severe,  could  have  prompted  so  great  a  degree 
of  retrenchment,  but  the  fact  that  after  the  recovery  from  the  panic  a  course 
bordering  on  parsimony  in  dealing  with  municipal  affairs  was  adopted,  sug- 
gests what  was  actually  the  case  that  some  of  the  more  powerful  editorial 
writers  of  the  period  were  coming  under  the  domination  of  the  individualis- 
tic idea,  which  was  very  assertive  at  the  time.  The  Bulletin  exhibited  this 
influence  in  a  marked  degree,  and  its  editorial  columns  teemed  with  articles 
in  favor  of  a  let-alone  policy,  so  far  as  collective  effort  to  provide  municipal 
conveniences  was  concerned,  and  it  was  insistent  in  its  advocacy  of  a  pay-as- 
you-go  plan  for  the  city. 

San  Francisco  at  the  time  was  sadly  in  need  of  many  public  improve- 
ments.    It  had  few  small   parks,   and  the  idea   of  an  extensive  people's 
pleasure  ground  had  not  yet  been  mooted.     Its  City  Hall  was  a   make- 
shift* affair  and  its  streets  were  ill-paved  and  the  sidewalks 
Ingrained  were  wretched.     A  few  years  earlier  the  desirability  of  caus- 

Municipal  i^^o  the  roadways  of  the  city  to  be  constructed  with  some 
Corruption  regard  to  its  topography  was  advocated,  but,  after  1856, 
considerations  of  that  sort  were  wholly  lost  sight  of,  and  the 
example  of  rectangularity  furnished  by  one  or  two  cities  of  the  East  was 
blindly  imitated.  The  impression  derived  from  a  perusal  of  many  editorials 
written  between  the  occurrence  of  the  Vigilante  uprising  and  the  close  of 
the  sixties  is  tliat  the  fear  of  official  corruption  had  become  so  ingrained  that 
no  one  had  the  courage  seriously  to  propose  anything  which  might  reopen 


HAKK"f   JMKi(U5S 
One   of  San   Francisco's  earliest  promoters. 


The  Calm  that  Followed  the  Storm  of   1856        35 

the  doors  of  opportunity  to  extravagance.  It  is  not  impossible  that  this 
abstention  from  discussion  might  have  been  produced  by  absorption  in  the 
oversliadowing  question  of  the  day.  It  might  be  assumed  that  such  was 
the  case  if  the  prodigious  space  devoted  to  articles  on  the  extension  of  slavery 
and  cognate  subjects  were  alone  considered,  but  the  fact  that  during  the 
period  referred  to,  side  by  side  with  profoundly  earnest  attempts  to  solve 
the  greatest  of  American  problems,  could  be  found  efforts  suggestive  of  a 
livelier  interest  in  purely  esthetic  matters  than  we  find  in  many  modern 
newspapers. 

At  the  time  we  speak  of  the  newspaper  was  not  developed  to  any 
extent  outside  of  the  purely  practical.  It  dealt  chiefly  with  everyday  affairs 
and  relegated  art  ancl  literature  to  odd  corners.     Very  often  the  apologetic 

head  "Miscellaneous"  was  placed  over  a  bit  of  poetry,  or 
Newspapers  a  short  story,  as  if  the  editor  was  not  quite  sure  that  they 
Easily  deserved  admission  to  the  columns  under  his  control.     Per- 

Started  haps  the  explanation  of  this  attitude  may  be  found  in  the 

fact  that  very  few  persons  concerned  in  the  publication  of 
newspapers  regarded  Journalism  as  a  profession.  It  could  hardly  be  con- 
sidered such  at  the  time  for  various  reasons,  chief  among  which  was  the 
ease  with  which  a  newspaper  could  be  called  into  existence.  It  has  already 
been  told  how  James  King  of  William  started  the  Bulletin,  convinced  that 
such  money  as  he  might  invest  in  the  enterprise  would  be  lost.  Undoubtedly, 
there  were  others  like  him  who  entertained  no  hope  of  profit,  but  sought  to 
accomplish  a  purpose  in  entering  the  journalistic  field.  Still  others  saw  an 
opportunity  to  make  a  living,  even  if  the  business  of  publishing  held  out  no 
promise  of  great  rewards ;  the  latter  may  be  properly  inferred  from  the 
number  of  papers  called  into  existence,  most  of  them,  however,  destined  to 
live  only  a  short  life. 

The  significant  feature  of  the  mushroom  growth  of  newspapers  in  the 
early  days  was  the  facility  with  which  any  one  possessed  by  the  desire  to 
enter  the  journalistic  arena  could  achieve  his  wishes.    It  required  very  little 

capital  to  create  a  plant  capable  of  turning  out  such  sheets 
Papers  ^g  ^^.^^^  produced  during  the  fifty  decade  of  the  nineteenth 

Limited  century.     Although  the  Adams  steam  power  press  had  been 

Circulation       invented  as  early  as  1835,  it  did  not  speedily  supplant  the 

old-fashioned  hand  press,  and,  indeed,  there  did  not  seem 
to  be  much  demand  for  a  machine  which  would  produce  a  great  number  of 
copies,  a  statement  attested  by  the  fact  that  the  paper  of  greatest  circulation 
in  1856  only  boasted  the  issuance  of  3600  copies  daily.  But  the  word 
'•boast"  is  misapplied  in  this  connection.  It  does  not  appear  that  publishers 
or  editors  concerned  themselves  half  as  much  about  that  phase  of  the  busi- 
ness as  they  did  about  what  appeared  in  the  columns  of  the  papers  printed 
by  them,  and  they  oftener  asked  themselves  what  effect  this  or  that  article 
had  produced  on  "the  community  than  they  did  the  number  of  copies  issued. 
Obviously,  under  such  conditions,  the  relations  of  the  business  office  and 
the  editorial  rooms  of  newspapers  were  not  the  same  as  at  present.  Indeed, 
not  infrequently  they'  were  so  closely  associated  as  to  be  inseparable,  and 
in  not  a  few  cases  the  owner  performed  the  functions  of  editor,  publisher 
and  reporter,  and  made  them  fit  in  with  each  other  admirably. 

It  was  several  years  after  Iloe  built  his  first  rotary  press  for  the  Parisian 
paper  La  Patrie,  in  1848,  that  machines  of  that  sort  were  introduced  into 


36  Journalism  in  California 

this  country,  and  it  was  not  until  ISGl  that  the  first  practical  perfecting 
press  was  put  up  in  Cincinnati.     It  did  not  achieve  a  marked  success,  al- 
though 8000  to  10,000  copies  of  a  small  sheet,  printed  on 
C  ifit  1  '^'*°^^^  sides,  could  be  turned  out  by  it  in  an  hour.     As  late  as 

Invested  in  IS'^'O,  American  newspaper  proprietors  were  convinced  that 
Newspapers  they  would  liave  to  resort  to  England  for  a  rapid  printing 
machine,  the  success  achieved  by  the  Walter  press  of  the 
London  Times  having  turned  attention  in  that  direction.  Prior  to  the 
adoption  of  these  rapid  printing  machines,  with  their  accessories  of  stereo- 
typing plants,  engines  to  provide  the  power  for  running  them  and  the 
later  development  of  the  linotype,  the  starting  of  a  newspaper  enterprise 
did  not  call  for  the  investment  of  a  very  great  amount  of  capital.  A  hand 
press,  which  would  turn  out  five  or  six  hundred  papers  printed  on  both 
sides,  a  few  hundred  pounds  of  type  and  the  cases  to  contain  them,  and  a 
number  of  other  essential  but  not  very  expensive  articles  constituted  an 
ample  equipment  for  publishing  a  journal  whose  appearance  on  the  street 
with  an  article  written  under  high  pressure  created  as  big  a  sensation, 
relatively,  as  a  modern  publication  with  press  facilities  capable  of  produc- 
ing as  many  papers  in  a  single  hour  as  could  be  turned  out  in  a  year  with 
the  more  modest  facilities  of  the  papers  of  the  fifties. 

The  comparative  ease  with  which  any  one  so  inclined  could  embark 
on  a  newspaper  enterprise,  owing  to  the  cause  indicated,  accounts  for  the 
large  number  of  dailies  and  weeklies  in  San  Francisco  in  the  earlier  fifties. 
It  is  not  to  be  attributed  to  any  extraordinary  development 
Twelve  ^^  ^j^g  appetite  for  news  or  such  literature  as  was  provided 

in  Sau  ^^  ^^^^  time.     That  may  readily  be  inferred  from  the  fact 

Francisco  that  the  combined  issues  of  the  twelve  dailies  that  flourished 

after  a  fashion  in  the  years  preceding  1856  did  not  exceed 
15,000,  a  per  capita  consumption  ridiculously  small  when  compared  with 
that  of  the  present  day,  when  the  demand  for  newspapers  seems  insatiable. 
And  this  ratio  of  circulation  was  not  greatly  increased  in  San  Francisco 
until  some  years  after  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  although  in  the  meantime 
the  ability  to  produce  a  larger  number  of  copies  was  facilitated  by  the 
introduction  of  the  cylinder  presses,  operated  by  steam  power,  which  were 
capable  of  printing  over  10,000  single  sheets  an  hour.  As  the  city  was 
reasonably  pros])erous  during  most  of  the  fifties,  and  very  flourishing 
throughout  the  Civil  War,  the  limited  circulations  of  the  period  must  have 
been  due  to  some  other  cause  than  lack  of  mechanical  facilities,  and  the 
only  one  that  suggests  itself  is  the  failure  of  the  pul)lishers  to  make  their 
papers  generally  attractive. 

In  this  connection,  a  list  of  the  papers  published  in  San  Francisco 
with  the  dates  of  their  birth,  and,  in  most  instances  of  their  demise,  from 
1846  to  1859,  inclusive,  may  prove  both  illuminating  and  interesting.  The 
first  on  the  list  was  the  Californian,  started  in  Monterey  in 
p^"  .  ,  1846  and  transferred  to  San  Francisco  in  1847,  to  be  merged 
Earliest  ^^'^*^*   ^^^^   California    Star,   the  plant   for  the  production   of 

Newspaper  which  was  brought  to  Yerba  Buena  by  ]\Iormon  colonists. 
The  merger  took  place  in  1848.  In  1849  the  Alta  Cali- 
fornia, the  Pacific  and  Prices  Current  were  founded.  The  Pacific  survived 
two  years  and"  Prices  Current  was  able  to  keep  alive  a  little  less  than  a 
year.     The  Alta  California,  after  occupying  a  leading  position  during  a 


The   Calm  that  Followed  the  Storm  of   1856        37 

couple  of  decades,  lost  prestige  during  the  seventies,  and  disappeared  in  the 
eighties.  In  1850  the  Herald  was  started  by  John  Nugent.  It  was  nearly 
ruined  by  its  attitude  of  hostility  to  the  Vigilantes,  but  managed  to  survive 
until  1SG2.  The  Public  Balance  was  another  of  the  ephemeral  publications 
of  1850,  dying  after  a  sickly  existence  of  about  six  months.  The  Evening 
Picayune,  established  in  the  same  year,  lasted  for  a  brief  period  only.  The 
California  Daily  Courier  endured  for  about  two  years.  The  birth  of  the 
Journal  of  Commerce  dates  back  to  1850.  It  is  still  published,  although 
it  sulTercd  an  interregnum  of  two  years,  but  has  flourished  since  its  revival, 
it  and  the  German  Demokrat  being  the  only  surviving  dailies  of  pioneer 
days,  the  latter  being  first  published  in  1853.  A  French  paper,  Le  Cali- 
fornian,  was  started  in  1850.  In  1851  the  Christian  Advocate,  still  exist- 
ing, and  the  Christian  Observer  made  their  appearance.  The  Golden  Era, 
started  in  1852,  manifested  literary  tendencies  from  the  start,  and  in  1854 
was  converted  into  a  magazine. 

In  1852  three  other  papers  also  saw  the  light.  The  Whig,  the 
Bugle  and  the  Catholic  Standard  Weekly.  Tlie  latter  ceased  publication 
in  1855,  the  Bugle  was  merely  a  campaign  paper.     In  1853  there  were 

more  new  candidates  for  public  favor.  The  Demokrat, 
c    'd'd  t  already  spoken  of,  the  California  Chronicle,  the  San  Fran- 

fQj.  cisco  Sun  and  the  Commercial  Advertiser.     The  Sun  shone 

Public  Favor    until  1857,  and  then  went  into  obscurity.     The  Commercial 

Advertiser  ran  its  career  in  four  years,  being  absorbed  by 
the  Daily  Whig  in  1857.  In  1851  there  were  several  new  publications. 
The  Town  Talk,  afterward  named  the  Times,  started  in  that  year,  and  in 
1869  was  taken  over  by  the  Alta  California.  The  Town  Talk,  wdien  pub- 
lished as  a  weekly,  essayed  illustrations,  portraits  produced  from  wood  cuts 
being  specially  favored,  although  it  occasionally  pictured  scenes.  The 
California  Farmer,  established  in  1854,  was  discontinued  in  1865.  La 
Chronica,  a  Spanish  paper,  started  in  1854,  dropped  out  in  1863.  The 
California  Mail,  started  in  1854,  had  a  checkered  existence,  and  finally 
dropped  out  of  sight  in  1878.  The  Benton  Critic  was  a  short-lived  journal 
started  in  1854.  The  Abend  Zeitung  had  its  birth  in  1854  and  was  still 
running  after  the  great  conflagration  in  1906.  In  1855  the  Fireman's 
Journal,  afterward  the  Spirit  of  the  Times,  was  issued.  In  the  same  year  the 
American  Daily  and  the  Evening  Bulletin  began  publication.  In  the  fol- 
lowing year  the  True  Vigilante  was  issued.  It  had  a  short  life,  making 
its  exit  when  the  committee  conceived  that  it  had  finished  its  work. 

Sunday  A^arieties  commenced  to  bid  for  popular  patronage  in  1856 
and  lasted  until  1865.  A  paper  called  the  Daily  Globe  was  started  in 
1856.     In  1858  it  changed  its  title  to  the  Xational,  and  lived  until  the 

opening  year  of  the  Civil  War.  The  Pathfinder,  published 
Pictorial  ^^  advocate  Fremont's  candidacy  for  President,  was  started 

of^the^^^  in   the   same   year.      In    1857   the   California   Eegister   was 

Fifties  published.      The    Athenaeum    and    California    Critic   began 

publication  in  1858,  and,  in  the  closing  year  of  the  decade, 
llie  growing  popularity  of  the  Police  Gazette  of  Xew  York  tempted  San 
Francisco  to  imitate  that  publication,  and  it  had  a  more  or  less  successful 
career  until  1865.  This  long  list  of  journals  has  led  to  some  comment 
hardly  justified  by  the  facts.  At  least  one  historian  has  drawn  the  inference 
from  it' that  San  "Franciscans  were  exceptionally  eager  for  news  in  the  early 


38  Journalism  in  California 

days,  but  their  appetite,  measured  by  luodern  standards  of  consumption, 
was  very  small  and  was  easily  satisfied  !)y  the  purveyors,  whose  facilities 
would  not  have  permitted  them  to  provide  a  much  greater  quantity  than  they 
did  had  the  desire  for  it  existed. 

That  the  patrons  of  the  newspapers  of  the  fifties  were  dissatisfied  with 
the  publications  prepared  for  them  might  be  inferred  from  the  large  mor- 
tality record,  but  it  is  not  probable  that  the  many  interments  in  the  jour- 

nalisic  graveyards  were  due  to  that  cause.  It  is  more  likely 
Early  Papers  ^^^^^  ^j^^  development  of  the  reading  habit  did  not  keep  pace 
Limited  with  the  increased  aspirations  for  patronage;  or,  perhaps,  it 

Appeal  would  more  exactly  represent  the  fact  to  state  that  the  public 

had  not  acquired  the  habit  of  looking  to  newspapers  for  their 
mental  pabulum,  not  at  all  a  surprising  circumstance  when  the  motives  for 
producing  them  are  considered.  An  epitome  of  the  contents  of  a  leading 
journal  of  the  early  fifties  has  already  been  given.  Anyone  who  will  take 
the  trouble  to  examine  it  closely  will  speedily  discover  that  it  appealed  to 
a  very  limited  number  of  tastes.  It  almost  wholly  disregarded  all  classes 
excepting  those  in  search  of  solid  information  in  the  shape  of  news  and 
comment  on  politics  and  current  happenings. 

It  is  not  intended  to  convey  the  impression  that  the  papers  whose  names 
are  above  quoted  confined  themselves  to  the  publication  of  news  and  edi- 
torial comment.     They  occasionally  stepped  aside  from  the  straight  and 

narrow  path.  Not  infrequently  verse  was  admitted  to  the 
^P^^*"^  columns  of  the  soberest  of  the  dailies,  and  sometimes  fiction 

to  Attract  ^^^  jokes  were  permitted  to  obtrude  themselves  on  the  atten- 
All  Classes        tion   of    serious   readers;   but  there    is   no   evidence   of   any 

studied  attempt  to  attract  all  classes  of  the  community  by 
presenting  matter  calculated  to  interest  even  those  showing  a  disinclination 
to  be  interested.  The  editor  did  not  have  for  his  motto,  "We  study  to 
please."  He  printed  such  facts  as  he  could  conveniently  gather  without 
putting  forth  much  effort,  and  if  an  unappreciative  public  refused  to  buy 
his  paper  he  ceased  to  publish  it  and  allowed  it  to  be  included  in  the  list  of 
"has  beens."  It  is  not  to  be  inferred  from  this  statement  that  papers  pub- 
lished under  such  conditions  did  not  contain  matter  that  was  interesting; 
the  idea  sought  to  be  conveyed  is  that  the  editor  of  the  fifties  did  not  realize 
that  it  is  possible  to  stimulate  the  disposition  to  read,  and,  failing  to  appre- 
hend that  possibility,  he  only  catered  for  those  in  whom  the  desire  for  news 
and  comment,  chiefly  political,  already  existed. 

At  the  close  of  1853,  when  twelve  dailies  were  published  in  San 
Francisco,  nine  of  which  were  morning  and  three  evening,  the  entire  news 
gathering  force  of  the  dozen,  according  to  an  estimate  made  l)y  a  printer 

whose  memory  went  back  to  that  period,  did  not  exceed 
gTo'^°'^'^^^  nineteen  persons.  At  the  same  time,  there  were  two  tri- 
Daily  weeklies    and    three    weeklies,    one    Sunday   paper    and    two 

Papers  monthly  publications,  one  of  which  was  devoted  to  literature 

and  the  other  appealed  to  the  agricultural  element.  The 
same  authority  who  estimated  the  newsgathering  force  in  1853  ventured  the 
opinion,  which  was  based  on  a  tolerably  intimate  acquaintance  with  the 
publication  business  of  the  j^ars  preceding  1856,  that  less  than  a  hundred 
and  twenty-eight  persons  were  employed  in  the  newspaper  offices  of  San 
Francisco  at  any  time  before  the  introduction  of  power  presses,  and  of  this 


The  Calm  that  Followed  the  Storm  of   1856         39 

number  not  a  few  were  engaged  in  job  printing,  many  of  tbe  early  dailies 
supplementing  the  arduous  work  of  getting  out  a  news  journal  by  doing 
commercial  work.  As  already  explained,  large  forces  were  not  required. 
The  news  field  in  the  city  was  circumscribed.  The  district  to  be  covered 
by  the  reporters  was  confined  to  a  few  blocks.  The  police  and  the  criminal 
courts  were  close  together,  but  the  police  were  so  greatly  in  the  minority 
that  they  did  not  interfere  seriously  with  those  who  were  supposed  to  be 
under  their  supervision. 

In    18J:9    there   were    only   six   constables   in    San    Francisco,   and   no 
particular  anxiety  was  manifested  because  of  the  smallness  of  the  force 
when  the  population  of  the  town  was  increased  by  the  rush  of  gold  hunters 
to  the  State,  many  of  whom,  after  a  brief  sojourn  in  the 
Scant  mines,  found  their  way  to  the  bay.     This  indilference  con- 

Concerning  tinned  during  several  years  and  was  partly  responsible  for 
Crime  the  necessity  of  the  citizens'  organization  taking  the  adminis- 

tration of  justice  out  of  the  hands  of  the  constituted  author- 
ities, as  they  did  in  1851  and  again  in  1856.  It  was  not  until  the  latter 
year,  when  the  Consolidation  Act,  framed  by  Horace  Hawes,  was  adopted 
that  any  considerable  increase  of  the  force  was  made,  a  fact  which  explains 
the  paucity  of  detail  concerning  crimes  recorded  in  the  early  dailies.  It  not 
infrequently  happened  that  mention  of  a  murder  would  be  made,  in  which 
no  attempt  to  ascertain  the  name  of  the  victim  was  apparent,  and  absolutely 
no  suggestion  which  would  help  the  reader  to  determine  the  cause  of  the 
crime  or  to  guess  who  was  its  perpetrator.  But  while  crimes  of  this  sort 
were  passed  over  without  much  comment,  barroom  brawls,  which  had  no 
other  outcome  than  a  few  blows  or  a  bloody  nose,  were  described  with  some 
minuteness,  especially  if  the  participants  happened  to  be  well  known. 

The  publication  of  divorce  news  was  often  accompanied  by  displays 
of  facetiousness.     One  or  two  papers  made  a  feature  of  recording  matri- 
monial separations  without  comment,  in  a  department  immediately  follow- 
ing that  devoted  to  marriages.     There  was  also  a  marked 
Vicious  tendency  to  deal  in  innuendo  of  a  sort  which  would  not  be 

Personal  tolerated  for  a  moment  in  a  modern  daily,  and  it  was  more 

Journalism  ^^  ^ess  fruitful  of  crimes  of  revenge.  Tbe  author  of  the 
"Annals  of  San  Francisco"  asserted  that  the  work  of  ca- 
lumnious writers  was  responsible  for  a  part  of  the  "sad  daily  record  of 
murders,"  and  an  examination  of  some  of  the  ambiguous  items  which  none 
but  a  person  perfectly  familiar  with  the  actors  whose  names  and  actions 
were  hinted  at  could  understand,  furnishes  convincing  evidence  that  he  did 
not  err  in  laying  the  blame  for  some  of  the  crimes  of  daily  occurrence  on  the 
sort  of  journalism  he  condemned. 

But  the  journalism  of  the  early  fifties  had  its  virtues  as  well  as  its  short- 
comings. Its  editors  took  themselves  seriously,  and  the  public  was  inclined 
in  many  cases  to  accept  them  at  their  own  valuation.  While  they  devoted 
themselves  to  the  elucidation  of  difficult  political  problems, 
Wh*°T  k  many  of  which  offered  themselves  for  solution  in  those  days. 
Themselves  they  on  occasion,  like  Silas  Wegg,  dropped  into  poetry. 
Seriously  aijd  some  of  them  were  quite  as  ready  to  "Decline  and  Fall," 

as  Dickens'  quaint  character.  Gibbon  had  a  remarkable 
vogue  among  the  more  erudite  editors  of  the  fifties,  a  fact  betrayed  by 
frequent  quotations,  and  a  marked  disposition  to  find  analogies  for  existing 


40  Journalism  in  California 

conditions  in  the  pajijes  of  liis  great  history.  The  readers  of  newspapers 
at  any  time  during  the  years  between  1<S49  and  1856  showed  no  impatience 
wlien  an  editor  drew  upon  the  past  for  comparisons,  and  there  was  no 
resentment  aroused  by  the  tendency  to  give  a  graceful  turn  to  an  idea  l)y 
rounding  out  a  paragrapb  with  a  line  or  two  of  verse.  Frank  Soule,  who 
began  his  newspaper  career  as  proprietor  of  tlie  Xew  Orleans  Mercury, 
was  as  much  admired  for  his  poetical  work  Avhen  .editor  of  the  California 
Chronicle  as  he  was  for  the  vigor  with  which  he  expressed  himself  when 
discussing  political  subjects. 

There  were  other  editors  cast  in  the  same  mold  as  Soule,  who  also 
occasionally  broke  away  from  the  self-imposed  limitation  of  gravity  which 
was  thought  becoming  to  the  editorial  column.  It  is  impossible  to  escape 
observation  of  the  fact  that  the  love  of  literature  was  con- 
Plenty  of  stantly  seeking  an  outlet  for  itself  in  the  daily  press,  and  it 
Trained  ^'"^  surprising  that  it  never  became  assertive  enough  to  induce 
Men  the  publishers  of  the  days  before  the  Civil  War  to  anticipate 
the  later  development  of  many-sidedness  which  has  become 
60  conspicuous  a  feature  of  modern  journalism.  There  certainly  was  talent 
enough,  for  San  Francisco  in  "the  days  of  gold"'  was  'overflowing  with 
college  trained  men,  not  a  few  of  whom  when  they  were  "down  on  their 
luck''  showed  an  inclination  for  journalism  rather  than  dishwashing  or 
waiting  on  the  table,  occupations  which  men  of  education  when  their 
resources  were  low  found  much  easier  than  manual  labor,  which  was  much 
better  remunerated  than  writing  for  the  press,  if  tradition  is  at  all 
dependable. 

A  glance  through  the  files  of  the  daily  press  of  the  fifties  shows  that 
the  rivalry  of  newspaper  editors  was  intense,  and  gives  point  to  the  asser- 
tion of  the  author  of  the  "Annals  of  San  Francisco"  "that  they  were  partic- 
ularly exposed,  not  merely  to  the  literary  raking  tire  of  an- 
Editors  tagonists,  but  to  their  literal  fire  as  Avell."     Occasionally  fail- 

Pigl(j  ing  to  derive  sufficient  stwsfaction  from  the  opportunity  to 

of  Honor  relieve  their  feelings  by  expressing  themselves  without  reserve 

in  the  columns  of  their  papers,  they  would  demand  the  sort  of 
reparation  which  it  was  supposed  could  be  obtained  only  on  "the  field  of 
honor."  There  were  several  such  editorial  meetings,  and  some  of  them 
had  a  serious  outcome,  but  as  it  was  incumbent  on  the  craft  to  maintain 
its  honor  no  one  seriously  deprecated  the  temporary  abandonment  of  the 
pen  for  weapons  calculated,  to  do  more  bodily  harm  if  less  capa])lc  of 
inflicting  mental  torture.  The  practice  of  dueling  fell  into  desuetude  before 
the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  but  long  after  its  termination  editors  of  rival 
papers  in  San  Francisco  continued  the  impossible  effort  to  settle  differences 
of  opinion  by  calling  each  other  hard  names.  And,  curiously  enough,  if 
the  stories  of  those  well  acquainted  with  the  old-time  editors  are  reliable, 
it  often  was  the  case  that  the  most  virulent  of  these  newspaper  swash- 
bucklers were  mild-mannered  gentlemen  outside  of  their  sanctums.  In  the 
language  of  James  O'Meara,  who  knew  the  most  of  them  well,  they  "would 
not  hurt  a  cat." 

How  much  of  the  ferociousness  displayed  by  editors  in  discussing  each 
other's  assumedly  weak  points  was  due  to  the  belief  that  the  public  liked 
newspaper  scrapping  it  Avould  be  difficult  to  tell  at  this  late  day.  When 
the  practice  of  hurling  journalistic  stink  pots  was  most  in  vogue  there  were 


The   Calm  that   Followed  the  Storm  of   1856         41 


few  college  professors  ready  lo  explain  the  inner  workings  of  a  newspaper 
office,  and  the  editorial  mind,  so  we  are  forced  to  rely  upon  the  evidence  of 

the  actors  in  the  wordy  combats.  One  of  these,  in  an  article 
Liked  published  in  The  Chronicle  in  1886,  describing  the  Broderick 

Journalistic      '^^^cl  Terry  dnel,  declared  that  the  first  thing  the  reader  of  a 
Scrapping         newspaper  in  the  early  fifties  would  turn  to  was  the  editorial 

columns  to  see  what  mean  things  were  being  said  about  the 
other  editor.  If  there  was  an  article  graphically  described  as  "tearing  the 
hide  off  the  hated  rival,"  or  unmasking  his  "unspeakable  villainies,"  it  was 
pronounced  "a  hummer,"  and  voted  absorbingly  interesting.  The  same 
authority,  however,  was  inclined  to  think  that  on  the  whole  the  sober  ex- 
pressions in  which  governmental  policies  were  analyzed  at  great  length 
were  more  admired  than  "frothy  nothings,"  which  hardly  concerned  those 
who  delivered  them  with  such  emphasis. 

As  may  well  be  imagined  at  a  time  when  much  attention  was  paid 
to  the  drama  by  a  public  as  fond  of  amusements  as  the  people  of  San 
Francisco,  criticism  occupied  a  prominent  place  in  the  newspapers.     It  was 

the  boast  of  the  early  press  that  the  great  artists  who  visited 
Appreciation  ^^iq  city  were  unanimous  in  the  expression  of  the  opinion  that 
Dramatic  the  critics  of  the  San  Francisco  papers  showed  a  rare  dis- 

Criticism  crimination.     Perhaps  the  tribute  was  deserved,  but  there  is 

a  suspicion  that  there  was  an  extraordinary  development  of 
the  appreciative  tendency.  It  may  be  true  that  few  bad  actors  visited  San 
Francisco  during  the  fifties,  but  it  is  more  than  likely  that  the  sentiment  of 
hospitality  operated  to  keep  the  critics  from  speaking  harshly  about  the 
performances  of  artists  who  had  made  such  a  long  journey  to  entertain 
them.  Many  of  these  dramatic  criticisms  were  more  noteworthy  for  their 
analysis  of  the  play  than  their  estimates  of  the  actors  interpreting  them,  and 
not  a  few  of  them  gave  evidence  that  the  writers  were  Shakespearean  stu- 
dents. Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  peculiarity  of  this  early  criticism  was 
the  tendency  of  the  critics  to  indulge  in  comparison.  There  is  luore  than 
one  instance  of  only  a  passing  allusion  to  the  performance  of  the  actor 
criticised,  while  the  bulk  of  the  article  is  given  up  to  enthusiastic  descrip- 
tion of  the  work  of  some  other  artist. 

In  the  first  chapter  the  fact  is  mentioned  that  the  boosting  habit  was 
inaugurated  by  a  pioneer  paper  before  the  rush  of  the  gold  hunters  began. 
It  was  not  dropped  after  their  arrival  in  force.    Editors  occasionally  became 

tired  of  discussing  such  abstruse  questions  as  the  origin  of 
The  the  negro,  and  whether  slavery  was  justified,  and   touched 

Boosting  upon  subjects  concerning  which  they  could  speak  with  more 

Habit  assurance  that  the  reader  would  believe  that  tliey  knew  what 

they  were  talking  about.  A  favorite  topic  for  leaders  was 
the  climate  of  California.  Articles  of  this  sort  seemed  to  breathe  a  con- 
sciousness on  the  part  of  the  editor  that  he  was  addressing  himself  to  people 
in  the  old  home,  a  belief  which  was  justified  by  the  well  developed  practice 
of  mailing  papers  to  friends  in  the  East  and  in  other  parts  of  the  world. 
It  was  this  custom,  begun  while  the  gold-hunting  fever  was  at  its  height, 
that  laid  the  foundation  on  which  the  boosters  of  Los  Angeles  later  raised 
their  climate  superstructure.  The  pioneer  editor  was  so  accustomed  to 
speaking  of  California  as  "Cod's  country,"  and  urged  the  claim  so  per- 
sistently that  the  world  accepted  it  without  dispute. 


CHAPTER  VI 


VAEIOUS   TEOUBLES    ON   THE    EVE    OF    THE 
CIVIL    WAR. 

Effect  of  Telegraph  Construction  on  Appetite  for  News — San  Francisco  Papers 
Take  on  a  More  Newsy  Appearance — Backroom  Nominations  Clieerfully  Ac- 
cepted^An  Insistent  Demand  for  Eetrenchment — Hot  Discussions  of  Burning 
Questions — No  Doubt  Regarding  Stand  Taken  by  Editors — ^David  C.  Broderick's 
Career  in  San  Francisco — Broderick  's  Championship  of  Free  Labor — Loose 
A'iews  Concerning  the  Institution  of  Slavery — Broderick  Elected  United  States 
Senator — Broderick  and  Terry  Members  of  Law  and  Order  Party  in  1856 — 
Terry  Kills  Broderick  in  a  Duel — A  Forerunner  of  Evils  to  Come- — Not  Much 
Interest  in  State  Division — San  Francisco  Not  Eager  to  Become  a  Capital — All 
Agreed  on  Subject  of  Importance  of  the  Harbor — Fremont's  Prophetic  Instinct — 
Maritime  Proclivities  of  Early  Press — The  Defeat  of  the  Bulkhead  Scheme — A 
Seawall  Pro,]ect  Headed  Off — Editors  Stimulating  Agricultural  Development — 
Advocacy  of  Big  Farms — The  Mining  Industry  Regarded  as  the  Premier. 


N  HIS  "A  Senator  of  the  Fifties,"  'Jeremiah  Lynch 
quotes  from  the  diary  of  an  American  Xavy  chaplain 
the  statement  that  althovigh  the  discovery  of  gold  was 
made  in  January,  1848,  the  news  of  the  event  was  not 
carried  to  Monterey  until  the  following  May.  There 
was  a  continuous  improvement  in  the  matter  of  the 
dissemination  of  news  after  this  period,  but  the  rate  of 
progress  was  comparatively  slow  until  after  the  com- 
pletion of  the  telegraph  line  between  the  Missouri  river  and  San  Fran- 
cisco in  October,  1861.  The  stimulating  influence  of  the  desire  for  war 
news  after  that  date  had  the  effect  of  inducing  editors  to  display  more 
activity  in  gathering  intelligence  from  the  interior  of  the  State,  and  there 
was  a  distinct  improvement  in  the  appearance  of  the  news  columns  of  the 
daily  papers.  The  tendency  to  eliminate  all  details  and  get  at  the  nub  of 
the  story  was  beginning  to  give  way  to  something  remotely  resembling 
amplification,  and  occasionally  a  disposition  was  shown  to  present  more 
than  the  bare  facts.  But  the  journalists  of  the  Civil  War  time  were 
still  dominated  by  the  idea  that  people  cared  much  more  for  opinions  than 
facts. 

After  the  subsidence  of  the  passions  aroused  by  the  arbitrary  action  of 
the  Vigilance  Committee,  there  was  for  a  time  an  eager  interest  in  munic- 
ipal affairs,  which  manifested  itself  in  the  form  of  strict  attention  to  the 
performance  of  civic  duties.  Oood  citizens  went  to  the  polls  and  voted  for 
the  ticket  framed  for  them  in  the  secrecy  of  a  back  room,  and  it  never 
occurred  to  them  that  they  were  being  deprived  of  an  important  preroga- 

42  M 


Troubles  on  Eve  of  Civil  War  43 


tive  because  they  had  taken  no  part  in  making  the  nominations.  Their 
chief  concern  seemed  to  be  "to  get  good  men  to  run  for  office,  and  they  did 
not  ask,  or  at  least  did  not  botlier  themselves  about  the  man- 
Peop"e's  °"  ^^^  °^  ^^^^"'  selection.  When  candidates  were  put  up  by  the 
Party  People's  party  they  voted  for  and  elected  them,  and  when  the 

Junta  result  they  aimed  to  accomplish,  namely,  the   reduction  of 

excessive  expenditures,  was  achieved,  they  were  satisfied.  The 
satisfaction  of  the  majority  with  the  outcome  did  not,  however,  have  the 
effect  of  silencing  criticism,  and  many  tart  editorials  directed  against  the 
undemocratic  practice  of  surrendering  the  right  of  selection  were 
written. 

It  was  several  years,  however,  before  any  impression  was  made  on 
the  community,  which  had  adopted  "let  well  enougli  alone"  as  its  motto. 
Cut  taxes  to  the  bone,  was  the  demand,  and  when  men  were  elected  who 
acceded  to  it,  there  was  no  disposition  shown  by  the  majority 
the^^Liberty  ^^  voters  to  question  the  method  by  which  officials  so  satis- 
of  the  factory  in  that  particular  were  secured.     But  much  ink  and 

People  good  white  paper  were  consumed  in  the  preparation  of  scorch- 

ing articles  the  purpose  of  which  was  to  convince  the  people 
that  they  were  being  deprived  of  their  liberties.  The  agitation  was  per- 
sistently kept  up,  and,  ultimatel}^  the  Legislature,  in  the  session  of  1865-66, 
passed  a  primary  law  which  for  some  time  was  regarded  as  democratic 
enough  to  satisfy  the  most  exacting.  The  resort  to  it  finally  had  the  effect 
of  procuring  for  the  people  a  chance  to  substitute  for  the  men  carefully 
selected  by  interested  taxpayers,  determined  upon  keeping  down  the  rates, 
candidates  who  were  not  always  economical,  but  were  ready  to  promise  to 
pay  attention  to  the  rising  demand  for  improvements  of  various  kinds,  many 
of  which  were  mooted  but  few  of  which  were  given  a  serious  thought  until 
some  years  after  the  surrender  at  Appomattox. 

If  there  M^as  one  thing  that  distinguished  the  journalism  of  San  Fran- 
cisco during  the  three  or  four  years  preceding  the  firing  on  Sumter,  it  was 
the  earnestness  of  the  discussion  precipitated  by  the  various  events  which 
indicated  to  the  thoughtful  that  a  collision  between  the  North 
??*      .  and  South  was  inevitable.    The  attack  by  pro-slavery  men  on 

of  Great  Lawrence,   Kas.,   in   1856,   and  the   assault  in   Congress   on 

Questions  Charles  Sumner  by  Brooks  in  the  same  year ;  the  Dred  Scott 

decision  in  October,  1857;  the  Lecompton  convention,  held 
a  month  later,  which  adopted  a  pro-slavery  constitution,  and  the  second 
Lecompton  convention  in  1858  were  all  discussed  at  great  length. in  all  their 
bearings,  and  sometimes  with  a  virulence  which  foreshadowed  the  bitter- 
ness of  the  impending  conflict,  which  some  of  them  seemed  inclined  to 
regard  as  desirable.  There  was  no  trimming.  The  editorials,  altliough 
often  verbose  to  a  degree  rarely  met  with  in  a  modern  newspaper,  left  the 
reader  in  no  doubt  as  to  where  the  editor  stood  and  it  may  be  said  in  passing 
that  the  man  who  subscribed  for  a  paper  in  those  troubled  times  was 
governed  entirely  by  the  desire  to  secure  a  journal  with  the  views  of  which 
he  was  in  accord. 

While  the  editors  of  the  San  Francisco  papers  at  all  times  between  1857 
and  the  firing  on  Sumter  in  1861  had  much  to  say  about  national  politics, 
they,  not  unnaturally,  gave  especial  prominence  to  those  events  which 
touched  them  most  closely.     The  actions  of  the  Vigilance  Committee  for 


44  Journalism  in  California 

a  long  time  after  the  quietus  put  on  tlie  criminal  classes  by  its  energetic 
methods  were  frequently  dwelt  upon,  and  an  astonishing  amount  of  space 
was  devoted  to  determining  just  at  what  particular  moment  an  event  oc- 
curred, or  the  precise  words  uttered  by  some  actor  in  the  con- 
^f^R*^  test  which  had  for  its  aim  the  restoration  of  order.     It  is  not 

foj.  surprising  that  these  verbal  disputes  should  have  arisen,  for 

Dispute  the  prominent  persons  opposed  to  fhe  course  of  the  Vigilance 

Committee  claimed  to  be  the  champions  of  "law  and  order," 
and  doubtless  there  were  many  who  were  firmly  convinced  that  the  Vigi- 
lantes were  a  destructive  mob.  When  such  a  difference  of  opinion  exists 
there  is  obviously  much  room  for  contention,  and  it  was  availed  of  to  the 
full  extent  that  space  permitted. 

A  scarcely  less  fruitful  subject  of  dispute  was  the  causes  that  led  up 
to  the  duel  between  David  C.  Broderick  and  David  S.  Terry,  which  proved 
fatal  to  the  former.     The  "affair  of  honor"  took  place  in  this  city  on 
Monday    morning,    September    12,    1859,    and    the    circum- 
Career  stances  point  conclusively  to  the  encounter  being  the  outcome 

David  C.  of  political  rather  than  personal  differences.     Broderick  was 

Broderick  among  the  first  in  the  rush  for  gold,  but  he  chose  to  seek  for 

it  in  other  places  than  the  placers.  Although  born  in  Wash- 
ington, he  was  a  New  Yorker  and  perfectly  familiar  with  the  methods  of 
the  worst  school  of  politicians  of  the  metropolis,  and  was  not  long  about 
putting  them  in  practice  in  San  Francisco.  He  made  money  in  real  estate 
deals,  and.  his  name  was  mixed  up  with  the  unsavory  job  by  which  Peter 
Smith  secured  a  large  slice  of  the  water  front  through  the  connivance  of 
corrupt  municipal  officials.  ,It  was  not  charged  that  he  was  in  the  alleged 
conspiracy,  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  profited  by  the  sales  which  were 
contrived  with  the  object  of  permitting  Smith  to  profit  by  his  cunning 
manipulation  of  city  warrants.  It  was  also  freely  asserted  that  Broderick 
in  his  capacity  of  boss  collected,  large  sums  of  money  from  candidates  for 
offices,  which  were  supposed  to  be  devoted  to  promoting  the  interests  of 
the  party,  and  that  he  Avas  not  backward  about  taking  a  commission  for 
his  trouble.  He  also  made  considerable  money  in  the  business  of  private 
coinage  during  the  period  when  the  Federal  Government  was  so  remiss  in 
its  duty  that  in  the  midst  of  an  abundance  of  gold  there  was  no  lawful 
circulating  medium,  all  the  gold  coin  in  use  in  California  being  struck  by 
individuals  without  a  shadow  of  authority. 

There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  Broderick  was  sound  in  sentiment, 
despite  the  blemishes  upon  his  character,  which  were  as  much  the  fault  of 
the  methods  of  the  time  in  which  he  played  his  part  as  they  were  of  the 
defects  in  his  general  make  up.  From  the  beginning  he  had 
Indeterminate  identified  himself  with  the  cause  of  free  labor,  and  in  the 
o/*^^  Legislature  and  out  of  it,  he  boldly  stuck  to  his  colors.     It 

Slavery  was  one  of  the  anomalies  of  the  politics  of  the  period  that  men 

with  widely  divergent  views  respecting  slavery  should  be  al)le 
to  work  together  as  members  of  the  same  party,  a  condition  of  affairs  wholly 
due  to  the  fact  that  no  consciousness  of  the  immorality  of  the  institution  had 
been  developed  in  the  rank  and  file  of  the  American  people.  The  career 
of  Broderick  and  the  arguments  of  the  San  Francisco  press  all  through  the 
fifties  indicate  clearly  that  such  hostility  as  existed  was  engendered  hy  self- 
interest,  and  that  opposition  to  the  extension  of  slavery,  except  that  dis- 


Troubles  on  Eve  of  Civil  War  45 


played  by  a  few  extremists,  was  wholly  regarded  from  the  standpoint  of 
expediency.  A  man  might  be  a  "free  soiler"  and  resent  with  indignation 
the  imputation  that  he  shared  the  ideas  of  the  small  band  of  abolitionists 
who  were  giving  Southern  statesmen  so  much  concern. 

Thus  it  happened  that  Broderick,  although  constantly  interfering  with 
the  plans  of  the  Southern  contingent  in  California,  who  never  lost  sight  of 
the  desirability  of  attaching  the  Golden  State  to  their  cause,  was  able  to 

have  himself  elected  United  States  Senator  at  a  period  when 
Elected  ^^^®  situation  was  becoming  extremely  acute,  and  when  the 

United  States  slaveholding  oligarchy  was  leaving  no  stone  unturned  in  its 
Senator  efforts  to  secure  absolute  control  of  the  legislative  as  well  as 

the  administrative  branches  of  the  Federal  Government.  It 
was  said  of  Broderick  after  his  election  that  his  success,  notwithstanding 
the  tension,  was  a  personal  success,  and  that  legislators  voted  for  him  be- 
cause he  was  Broderick  and  not  particularly  because  they  shared  his  views 
concerning  the  burning  question  of  the  day.  Whether  this  correctly  de- 
scribes the  situation  or  not,  it  is  a  fact  that  when  he  began  to  make  his  at- 
tacks on  Buchanan  he  quickly  became  the  idol  of  that  element  in  the 
community  which  viewed  with  disgust  and  suspicion  the  encroachments  of 
the  Federal  brigade,  composed  as  it  was  of  office  seekers  from  the  region 
south  of  the  so-called  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  at  the  same  time  that 
he  incurred  the  emity  of  the  Southerners,  who  realized  that  he  would 
prove  a  formidable  obstacle  to  the  carrying  out  of  plans  mediated  by 
them. 

It  was  assumed  by  some  that  David  S.  Terry  was  chosen  as  the  instru- 
ment to  remove  Broderick,  but  it  is  more  than  likely  that  he  required  no 
other  inspiration  than  that  of  an  intolerant  dislike  of  opposition  to  the 

extension  of  slavery,  Terry  came  from  Texas  to  California 
Ten-v  ^^  184:9  as  a  mounted  ranger.     He  engaged  in  the  practice 

and  of  the  law  and  was  elected  Associate  Justice  of  the  Supreme 

Broderick  Court  on  the  Native  American  ticket  in  1855.     Before  that 

event,  he  had  come  in  conflict  with  Broderick,  opposing  him 
in  the  convention  of  1854.  During  the  trying  A'igilante  times  Terry  arrayed 
himself  on  the  side  of  the  Law  and  Order  party,  and  was  perilously  near 
sharing  the  fate  of  Cora  and  Casey,  being  arrested  at  the  instance  of  the 
committee  and  tried  for  resisting  its  officials,  one  of  whom  he  cut  with  a 
bowie  knife  while  in  the  act  of  serving  a  summons  whose  validity  Terry 
would  not  recognize.  Broderick  was  also  in  sympathy  witii  the  Law  and 
Order  party,  and  afterward  remarked  bitterly  that  he  had  paid  a  newspaper 
$200  a  week  to  defend  Terry's  cause  when  he  was  being  tried  by  the 
Vigilante  Committee,  which  deemed  it  expedient  to  refrain  from  carrying 
out  the  desire  of  the  section  of  the  organization  favoring  what  it  called 
"a  clean  sweep."  The  fact  that  the  two  were  on  the  same  side  in  the 
Vigilante  uprising  cannot  be  taken  as  evidence  that  they  were  in  political 
accord ;  nor  is  it  to  be  regarded  as  pointing  to  either  of  them  sympathizing 
with  the  criminal  element. 

The  fact  seems  to  be  tliat  Terry  hated  Broderick  with  all  the  vehemence 
of  an  intensely  intolerant  man.  Terry  was  a  Southerner  of  the  sort  who 
made  a  fetich  of  their  section.  He  looked  upon  any  one  planting  himself 
in  the  path  of  Southern  desires  as  an  enemy.  Among  his  friends  he  was 
reputed  to  be  kind-hearted,  but  he  had  acquired  the  habit  of  speaking  cyu- 


46  Journalism  in  California 

ically  of  those  wliom  he  antagonized.     In  the  course  of  a  speech  made  by 
him  he  referred  to  Broderick  as  a  follower  of  "the  black  Douglass,  whose 
name  is  Frederick  and  not  Stephen."    Broderick  resented  the 
^^IJ  coarse  sarcasm,  and  remarked  in  the  hearing  of  some  one  who 

Broderick  carried  the  tale  to  Terry,  that  he  once  considered  the  latter  as 

in  a  Duel  the  only  honest  man  on  the  Supreme  bench,  "but  now  I  take 

it  all  back."  It  was  two  months  after  the  remark  was  made 
before  Terry  demanded  satisfaction.  The  meeting  took  place  and  Broderick 
fell  at  the  first  shot.  Stories  were  told  and  believed  that  the  pistol  used  by 
the  Senator  was  "quick  on  the  trigger,"  and  that  he  had  no  chance  for  his 
life,  but  it  is  not  likely  that  they  were  true.  Terry  was  not  a  coward  nor  a 
murderer;  he,  as  well  as  his  victim,  were  the  product  of  unsettled  times  in 
which  passion  rather  than  reason  swayed,  and  they  must  be  judged  by  the 
standards  of  that  period  and  not  those  of  our  own  day.  Terry  was  placed 
under  arrest  in  San  Francisco  and  charged  with  the  crime,  but  the  case  was 
transferred  to  another  county  and  he  was  acquitted. 

Broderick  was  not  the  only  victim  of  the  political  tension  of  the  late 
fifties,  but  the  conspicuousness  of  his  position  caused  his  encounter  to  be 
more  discussed  than  any  other  occurrence  in  San  Francisco,  with  the  ex- 
ception, perhaps,  of  the  Vigilante  episode.  It  was  remarked 
^f  WhaT^^^'^  liy  Editor  James  O'Meara,  who  sometime  in  the  eighties 
Was  to  wrote  a  series  of  articles  about  pioneer  days,  that  the  quantity 

Come  of  matter  written  about  the  Broderick  and  Terry  duel  would 

have  filled  a  big  library  if  it  had  all  been  gathered.  That 
the  affair  should  have  been  productive  of  so  much  comment  is  not  at  all 
singular,  for  the  men  who  wrote  about  it  realized  that  the  tragedy  was  a 
forerunner  of  what  was  to  come,  and  almost  unconsciously  they  invested  it 
with  its  real  importance,  many  of  them  treating  it  as  if  it  were  a  national 
event,  as,  indeed,  it  was  in  more  senses  than  the  narrow  one  that  it  attracted 
and  startled  the  whole  Nation.  The  historian  seeking  to  gain  an  insight 
into  the  minds  of  men  in  the  closing  year  of  the  fifty  decade  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  can  find  plenty  of  material  in  the  diverse  opinions  of  the  San 
Francisco  editors  which  found  expression  in  the  endless  stream  of  articles, 
written  not  so  much  to  prove  that  Terry  was  right  or  wrong,  as  they  were  to 
establish  the  justice  of  the  cause  they  advocated. 

It  might  be  inferred  from  this  comment  that  the  San  Francisco  editors 
were  prone  to  make  much  of  an  event  because  they  wrote  with  facility,  but 
an  examination  of  their  editorial  columns  would  not  justify  such  a  con- 
clusion.    There  were  some  subjects  to  which  an  unlimited 
Q  ®  quantity  of  space  was  accorded,  but  others  to  which  a  later 

of  State  generation,  under  changed  circumstances,  has  attached  a  good 

Division  deal  of  importance  were  dismissed  very  cavalierly.     Among 

these  was  the  question  of  State  division.  On  the  19th  of 
April,  1859,  the  Legislature  passed  a  State  division  measure  which  would 
have  permitted  the  six  southern  counties  of  the  State  to  separate  themselves 
from  the  north.  It  would  be  difficult  to  divine  from  the  limited  degree  of 
attention  accorded  to  the  proposal  whether  any  concern  was  felt  by  the 
people  of  San  Francisco  over  the  prospects  of  separation.  On  the  whole, 
the  calmness  of  treatment  suggests  that  San  Franciscans  would  not  have 
bothered  themselves  if  the  secession  had  taken  place,  and,  perhaps,  the 
indifference    shown   by   the   metropolitan   press   was   responsible   for    the 


I 


Troubles  on  Eve  of  Civil  War  47 

failure    of    the    proposition    to    advance    further    tluin    to    the    perinissory 
stage. 

This  attitude  of  indifference  was  not  confined  to  the  matter  of  State 
division.  In  1860,  owing  to  the  flooding  of  Sacramento,  the  Legislature, 
then  in  session,  adjourned  to  San  Francisco.    The  necessity  imposed  on  the 

solons  of  leaving  the  capital  city  started  a  removal  move- 
No^t  E?ge"^*'°  ment.  It  reached  the  stage  of  an  offer  of  $150,000  to  be 
to  Become  used  for  the  construction  of  a  new  capital,  and  of  any  one 
a  Capital  of  the  city's  public  squares  but  the  Plaza  for  a  building  ])lot. 

The  suggestion,  while  not  ignored,  was  so  quietly  treated  by 
the  press  as  to  create  the  impression  that  the  editors  were  convinced  that 
neither  city  nor  the  State  at  large  would  be  benefited  by  the  location  of  the 
capital  in  a  great  seaport.  Such  discussion  as  there  was  of  the  subject 
was  on  a  tolerably  high  plane,  and  only  a  few  articles  permeated  with  the 
booster  spirit  appeared.  Whether  the  press  affected  an  indifference  it  did 
not  feel  could  not  be  told  from  the  tone  of  the  few  articles  published.  It  is 
unlikely,  however,  that  there  was  any  affectation.  The  position  assumed 
was  very  like  that  taken  when  the  question  of  capital  location  first  came  up 
in  1850.  Xo  effort  to  secure  the  honor  so  eagerly  sought  by  other  places 
was  made  by  San  Francisco,  which  planted  itself  on  the  proposition  that 
the  future  greatness  of  the  city  would  depend  on  the  commerce  of  the  bay, 
which  it  was  thought  would  accomplish  wonders  without  adventitious  aid. 
There  was  one  subject  on  which  the  press  of  San  Francisco  was  in 
complete  accord  at  all  times,  and  that  was  the  importance  of  the  harbor. 
There  was  much  written  about  the  development  of  commerce  through  the 

instrumentality  of  convenient  ports  for  the  handling  of  the 
^  ^w^'^h^  products  of  the  country,  and  the  reception  of  the  exchangeable 
There  Was  productions  of  foreign  countries.  Although  the  talk  of  a 
Agreement        railroad  which  would  connect  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific 

began  very  shortly  after  the  gold  discovery,  the  minds  of 
men  naturally  reverted  to  things  with  which  they  were  familiar.  In  1849 
railroads  were  not  numerous  in  tolerably  well  peopled  regions,  and  there 
was  then  no  conception  of  their  possibilities  as  a  transportation  factor  which 
can  now  be  regarded  without  amusement.  The  ideas  concerning  them  were 
as  hazy  as  those  which  might  have  been  excited  by  the  quotation  of  Puck's 
promise  to  put  a  girdle  about  the  earth  in  forty  minutes.  The  first  legisla- 
tion purporting  to  regulate  freight  and  passenger  rates  shows  this  plainly, 
as  it  permitted  charges  which  would  have  been  absolutely  prohibitory.  But 
there  was  no  such  uncertainty  concerning  ocean  transportation.  Men  knew 
what  had  been  accomplished  through  its  agency.  It  was  not  at  all  strange 
that  Fremont  should  have  christened  the  entrance  to  the  bay  Chrysopolae. 
When  he  surveyed  the  broad  waters  of  a  harbor  whose  extent  rivals  that  of 
an  inland  sea  his  mind  reverted  to  the  glories  of  ancient  Byzantium,  and  he 
pictured  a  stream  of  commerce  flowing  through  the  '"Golden  Gate"  which 
would  enrich  those  who  handled  it,  and  the  gold  hunters  who  translated 
his  Greek  appellation  into  plain  English  shared  his  views,  and  their 
descendants  have  never  wavered  in  their  adherence  to  them. 

It  is  sometimes  assumed  that  this  belief  has  been  entertained  at  the 
expense  of  a  more  speedy  rate  of  progress  which  might  have  been  attained 
had  San  Francisco  not  been  so  wedded  to  her  harbor.  But  it  would  have 
been  difficult  to  convince  those  who  as  early  as  1856  pinned  their  faith  to 


48  Journalism  in  California 

the  desirability  of  uniting  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  by  means  of  a  canal 
that  they  were  in  error.    This  project  might  have  been  achieved  long  before 

the  completion  of  the  first  overland  railroad,  an  event  which 
^  .  did  not  occur  until  1869,  had  not  the  intrigues  of  a  rival  of 

of  Two  Commodore    Vanderbilt,    carried    through   with   the    aid    of 

Oceans  Filibuster    Walker,    frustrated    the    plans   of    the    Accessory 

Transit  Company,  which  had  obtained  a  concession  to  cut 
a  canal  through  Nicaragua.  But  the  failure  of  the  plan  in  those  early  days 
was  powerless  to  destroy  the  belief  that  the  destinies  of  great  cities  are  de- 
termined by  their  proximity  to  vast  bodies  of  navigable  waters,  which, 
though  apparently  separating  them  from  other  countries,  actually  make 
them  neighbors  to  the  whole  world.  Although  the  thought  of  uniting  the 
two  oceans  had  its  birth  when  Balboa  first  saw  the  Pacific,  it  was  the  abiding 
faith  of  the  people  of  San  Francisco  who  had  the  first  really  practical  con- 
ception of  a  scheme  of  canalizing  Nicaragua,  which  kept  alive  the  idea 
which  has  been  achieved  after  sixty  years  of  patient  waiting. 

It  is  not  strange  that  a  people  bold  enough  to  conceive  the  possibility 
of  cutting  a  canal  from  ocean  to  ocean  should  have  set  much  store  by  the 
commerce  borne  on  their  waters.     If  one  were  seeking  for  distinguishing 

peculiarities  in  the  early  press  of  San  Francisco  he  would 
Maritime  gj^^  much  evidence  of  its  permeation  by  the  maritime  spirit, 

of  Early  1^  glorified  the  exploits  of  its  first  wharf  builders.     Not  a 

Press  little   of  the   popularity   of   Harry   Meiggs  was  due  to  the 

admiration  excited  by  his  enterprise  in  constructing  the  long 
pier  extending  into  the  bay  which  bore  his  name  for  many  years,  and  it  was 
not  difficult  for  the  poetically  inclined  editor  to  find  a  resemblance  to  the 
canals  of  Venice  and  a  presage  of  the  future  greatness  of  the  port  in  the 
vigor  with  which  the  cove  of  Yerba  Buena  was  converted  into  dry  land, 
thus  bringing  ship  and  merchant  closer  together.  The  breeziness  of  the 
salty  deep  is  discovered  in  the  commercial  columns  of  San  Francisco's  first 
newspapers,  and  not  a  little  of  the  best  information  we  have  of  the  life  of 
the  people  is  found  in  that  department  of  the  daily  journals.  It  is  to  that 
part  of  the  paper  one  turns  with  interest  because  in  the  very  succinct  but 
often  glowing  descriptions  of  the  performances  of  the  clipper  ships  we  get 
a  glimpse  of  that  love  of  the  sea  which  seems  to  have  taken  possession  of  so 
many  who  found  their  way  to  California  in  pioneer  days. 

Those  were  the  days  of  long  distance  races  in  which  the  contestants 
performed  their  feats  of  swiftness  without  the  stimulus  which  the  knowledge 
of  a  rival's  position  imparts.    In  1852  seventy-two  clipper  ships  entered  the 

harbor  of  San  Francisco,  their  average  passage  from  New 
?/cif%r  ^^"^^  ^°  ^^"  Francisco  being  125  days.  The  Flying  Cloud 
Sljip  held  the  record,  covering  the  distance  between  the  Atlantic 

Exploits  and   Pacific   ports   in  eighty-nine   days.     The   departure   of 

these  vessels  which  usually  sailed  between  the  ports  of  New 
York  or  Boston  and  San  Francisco  was  known  to  the  citizens  of  the  latter 
city,  who  did  not,  in  the  case  of  favorites,  need  to  be  told  when  they  were 
sighted  by  the  Telegraph  Hill  lookout  how  many  days  they  had  been  out. 
Nor  did  readers  need  to  be  told,  as  they  were  in  the  succinct  accounts  of 
the  nautical  reporter,  who  sailed  the  gallant  craft,  for  they  knew  their 
names  as  well  as  the  modern  baseball  fan  does  those  of  the  favorites  of  the 
diamond.     That  one  realizes  at  once  who  notices  the  intimate  touch  of  the 


Troubles  on  Eve  of  Civil  War  49 

water  front  writer,  who  employed  his  nautical  terms  in  the  full  assurance 
that  those  who  read  what  he  wrote  would  not  be  bewildered  by  his  technical- 
ities, nor  surprised  that  he  should  become  poetical  in  describing  the  majes- 
tic appearance  of  a  clipper  as  she  came  through  the  Golden  Gate  with  all 
her  canvas  drawing. 

If  the  attempt  were  made  to  judge  the  interest  of  San  Franciscans  in 
public  and  private  affairs  in  the  fifty  decade  by  the  amount  of  space  devoted 
to  their  discussion  in  the  press,  it  would  undoubtedly  be  found  that  the 

average  citizen  regarded  questions  concerning  the  future  of 
A  Raid  the  harbor  as  next  in  importance  to  the  engrossing  topic  of 

on  the  the  aggressions  of  the  advocates  of  the  extension  of  slavery. 

Wa  er    ront     rpj^^  editorial  columns  of  the  earlier  years  teemed  with  articles 

touching  the  disposition  of  the  lands  on  the  water  front.  It  is 
true  that  many  of  them  were  woefully  indicative  of  an  earnest  effort  to  lock 
the  stable  door  after  the  horse  had  been  stolen,  but  they  bore  evidence  that 
the  stable  was  still  regarded  as  valuable  even  if  the  steed  had  been 
feloniously  appropriated.  The  great  hubbub  raised  over  the  unscrupulous 
disposal  of  water  front  lands  was  fully  equaled  by  the  commotion  produced 
by  the  attempt  to  change  the  bulkhead  line.  An  act  of  the  Legislature, 
passed  in  1851,  was  supposed  to  have  permanently  established  the  line 
beyond  which  wharves  might  not  be  extended,  but  in  1853,  undoubtedly 
instigated  by  San  Francisco  political  jobbers,  an  interior  member  introduced 
a  bill  having  for  its  object  the  extension  of  the  line  beyond  the  survey 
originally  made  under  the  earlier  act.  The  bait  offered  to  the  country 
member  by  the  schemers  was  the  promise  of  part  of  the  money  which  would 
be  derived  from  selling  the  600-foot  extension  into  the  bay,  but  the  real 
purpose  was  to  give  the  holders  of  Peter  Smith  scrip  lands  a  valid  claim  on 
their  purchases  to  which  the  city  could  give  no  title  because  it  possessed  no 
proprietary  interests  beyond  the  red  line  laid  down  on  an  earlier  map. 

The  denunciation  of  the  project  was  so  fierce  that  members  elected  to 
the  lower  house  from  San  Francisco  resigned  because  they  had  lost  the 
confidence  of  the  community  represented  by  them.     Charges  of  corruption 

were  freely  made,  and  the  alleged  lobbyists  retorted  on  the 
^  newspaper  editors  with  personalities.     In  a  speech  made  in 

Accused  Sacramento  while  the  excitement  ran  high  a  lawyer  denounced 

Editor  a  writer,  who  afterward  attained  prominence  as  a  reformer, 

as  "a  liar  who  lied  by  day,  and  lied  by  night  and  lied  for 
the  lust  of  lying."  This  onslaught  proved  ineffective ;  the  antagonists 
of  the  bulkhead  scheme  were  victorious.  At  one  stage  in  the  legislative 
game  it  promised  to  go  through  with  a  hurrah,  the  then  Governor,  Bigler, 
being  committed  to  the  project,  and  defending  his  attitude  by  asserting  the 
need  of  the  State  for  the  revenues  that  would  be  derived  from  the  sale  of  the 
600-foot  strip  along  the  entire  water  front.  Although  the  Assembly  passed 
the  bill  by  a  large  majority,  it  was  defeated  in  the  Senate  by  the  casting 
vote  of  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  who  earned  fame  by  breaking  the  tie  and 
recording  himself  as  against  the  measure  of  spoliation.  It  is  one  of  the 
anomalies  of  public  accusation  that  the  rhetorical  effort  directed  against 
the  editor  by  the  lawyer  was  frequently  revived  in  after  years  and  appar- 
ently accepted  as  truthful  by  people  who  refused  to  take  the  trouble  to  learn, 
as  they  might  easily  have  "done,  that"  the  editor  had  spoken  the  truth  and 
that  his  accuser  was  the  liar. 


50  Journalism  in  California 

The  defeat  of  the  bulkhead  scheme  was  conceded  by  all  critical 
pioneers  to  be  due  to  the  vigorous  opposition  of  the  press,  and,  after  the 
excitement  had  subsided  sufticiently  to  permit  a  calm  review  of  the  atfair, 
it  was  agreed  on  all  hands  that  a  great  disgrace  had  been 
Securing'"  *°  averted,  an  opinion  in  which  the  modern  investigator  will 
a  concur.     It  is  not  so  certain,  however,  that  another  project 

Seawall  opposed  with  nearly  as  much  vigor  as  the  bulkhead  extension 

job  deserved  the  bad  name  which  the  press  bestowed  upon 
the  enterprise.  In  1860  the  San  Francisco  Dock  and  Wharf  Company 
offered  to  build  a  stone  bulkhead  along  the  entire  water  front,  conditional 
upon  the  corporation  being  permitted  to  charge  shipping  for  the  use  of  the 
facilities  which  were  to  be  provided.  A  great  outcry  was  raised,  and  strong 
arguments  appeared  in  the  daily  press  pointing  out  the  danger  of  monopoly. 
It  was  admitted  that  the  State  would  have  the  right  to  regulate  charges, 
and  thus  protect  those  who  tlirough  necessity  were  obliged  to  use  the 
Avharves  from  extortion,  but  abundant  reasons  were  advanced  against  trust- 
ing to  such  doubtful  protection.  They  proved  cogent  enough  to  defeat  the 
enterprise. 

Fifty-four  years  have  elapsed  since  the  offer  was  made,  and  it  may 
be  interesting  to  consider  what  would  have  been  the  result  had  the  San 
Francisco  Dock  Company  been  permitted  to  construct  the  stone  bulkhead. 
Under  the  terms  of  the  grant  asked  for,  at  the  expiration  of 
A  fifty  years  the  bulkhead  would  have  become  the  property  of 

Neglected  the  State.    There  is  every  reason  for  believing  that  the  enter- 

Opportunity  prise  would  have  been  vigorously  prosecuted  had  the  con- 
cession been  granted.  The  corporation  showed  its  constructive 
ability  in  digging  a  graving  dock  out  of  the  solid  rock  at  Hunter's  point, 
a  business  enterprise  which  has  been  conducted  with  ability,  and  apparently 
to  the  satisfaction  of  the  interests  served.  We  may,  therefore,  assume  that 
the  bulkhead  would  have  been  built,  and  that  in  1910  it  would  have  become 
the  property  of  the  State.  In  the  meantime  what  has  happened?  Instead 
of  securing  a  stone  bulkhead,  we  are  still  making  feel)le  efforts  to  provide 
a  seawall,  an  undertaking  begun  on  paper  in  1863,  but  not  actually  com- 
menced until  1867,  and  still  a  long  way  from  completion.  Meanwhile, 
shipping  entering  the  harbor  and  using  the  facilities  provided  by  the  State 
has  annually  contributed  an  amount  of  revenue  which  would  have  satisfied 
the  demand  of  the  most  avaricious  corporation,  as  it  would  have  provided 
sufficient  income  to  pay  a  liandsome  profit  on  any  sum  likely  to  have  been 
invested  in  the  construction  of  the  stone  bulkhead. 

It  cannot  be  said  that  the  press  manifested  the  same  lively  interest  in 
other  matters  as  vitally  affecting  the  growth  of  the  city  as  they  did  in  the 
safeguarding  of  the  port.     After  the  passage  of  the  Consolidation  Act  in 
1856,  the  people  seemed  to  have  settled  down  to  the  con- 
Dem  nd  viction  that  it  completely  answered  the  requirements  of  a 

for  Public  growing  community.  The  measure  bristled  with  prohibitions, 
Improvements  but,  as  the  fetters  were  self-imposed,  those  who  wore  them 
did  not  chafe  under  the  restraint.  They  were  kept  from 
doing  so  by  the  constant  insistence  of  the  guiding  element  that  the  really 
essential  thing  in  a  city  is  to  keep  down  the  tax  rate.  The  acceptance  of 
this  view  proved  an  obstacle  to  public  improvements.  Years  before  the 
upheaval  in  1856  fault  had  been  found  with  the  tendency  of  the  people  of 


. 


Troubles  on  Eve  of  Civil  War  51 


San  Francisco  to  ignore  the  desirability  of  public  breathing  places.  There 
was  no  improvement  in  this  regard  until  some  years  after  the  close  of  the 
Civil  War.  Prior  to  the  outbreak  of  liostilities,  there  was  an  easy  acceptance 
of  existing  conditions.  If  there  was  any  disappointment  felt  over  the  fact 
that  the  census  of  1860  showed  a  population  of  only  56,802,  it  was  con- 
cealed under  an  affectation  of  the  belief  that  it  was  really  marvelous  that  a 
place  which  only  a  dozen  years  earlier  was  a  sleepy  village  of  less  than  500 
souls  had  become  in  so  short  a  space  of  time  a  bustling  city  with  all  the 
modern  conveniences;  by  which  the  writers  meant  to  convey  the  fact  that 
the  inhabitants  were  provided  with  gas  and  water  and  a  make-shift  sewerage 
system  while  studiedly  refraining  from  dwelling  on  such  drawbacks  as  bad 
streets,  inadequate  public  buildings  and  pleasure  grounds  and  other  con- 
trivances contributing  to  the  comfort  of  urban  life. 

It  could  hardly  be  said  that  the  city  vegetated  during  the  years  between 
1857  and  1861,  even  though  public  improvements  were  neglected.  Its 
trade  flourished  after  the  depression  of  the  first  named  year  had  passed 

away,  and  there  were  great  hopes  built  on  the  promise  of  the 
Press  ^^^  development  of  the  agricultural  resources  of  the  State.    These 

and  the  ^^'ei'e  not  greatly  diversified  at  the  time,  but  editors  surveying 

Farmer  the  advances  made  between  1850  and  1860  found  a  subject 

for  felicitation  in  the  increase  of  farms  from  872  in  the  first 
named  year  to  18,726  in  the  latter,  and  in  the  enlargement  of  the  area  of 
improved  land  from  4,333,614  acres  to  6,385,724  acres.  The  fact  that 
farm  products  of  the  census  year  were  valued  at  $48,726,804  was  dwelt 
upon  with  pride  and  predictions  of  a  great  future  expansion  were  freely 
made.  There  does  not  appear  to  have  been  any  perception  of  the  horticul- 
tural possibilities  of  California,  although  the  editors  were  alive  to  the  fact 
that  California  could  produce  excellent  fruit.  Indeed,  the  papers  were  in 
the  hal)it  of  claiming  that  California  fruits  Avere  unrivaled,  but  few  ven- 
tured to  go  further  than  to  suggest  that  envious  Easterners  would  do  well 
to  come  to  the  Coast  if  they  really  wished  to  enjoy  the  delights  of  life.  They 
had  no  idea  of  the  mountain  going  to  the  consuming  Mohammed,  as  it  does 
at  present ;  when  they  thought  of  exports  they  had  in  mind  wheat  and  flour, 
of  which  the  equivalent  of  558,546  centals  w^re  shipped  from  San  Fran- 
cisco in  1860,  giving  rise  to  dreams  of  a  great  future  for  that  cereal,  which 
were  realized  a  couple  of  decades  later  by  exports  aggregating  nearly 
25,000,000  centals. 

The  satisfaction  experienced  through  contemplation  of  the  agricultural 
possibilities  of  the  State  was  somewhat  weakened  by  the  apprehension  felt 
by  some  that  the  disposition  to  hold  intact  the  large  Spanish  and  Mexican 

land  grants  would  interfere  with  the  settlement  of  the  most 
Advocacy  fertile  tracts  by  an  industrious  population ;  but  singularly 

of  Sig  enough  the  same  papers  which  dwelt  with  emphasis  on  the 

Farms  desirability  of  dividing  the  land  into  small  tracts,  could  find 

space  to  discuss  with  approbation  views  inimical  to  minute 
subdivision  which  found  expression  in  the  writings  of  the  foremost  sociolog- 
ical writers  of  the  period,  and  a  few  editorials  may  be  found  in  which 
the  idea  is  advanced  that  a  happy  and  prosperous  farming  community  can 
only  be  created  by  affording  men  a  chance  to  work  a  large  piece  of  land, 
160  acres  being  pronounced  the  minimum  requirement  of  a  farmer  who 
wished  to  be  truly  comfortable.     Discussions  of  this  character  were  not 


52 


Journalism  in  California 


The  Press 
and  the 
Mining 
Industry 


uncommon  in  tlic  city  press  of  the  fifties,  and  tlie  interest  manifested  in 
agricultural  development  was  only  second  to  that  with  which  the  mining 
outlook  was  considered. 

Mining  throughout  the  fifties  was  regarded  as  the  mainstay  of  San 
Francisco.  Although  the  enormous  output  of  1853  of  over  $81,000,000 
had  fallen  to  a  little  more  than  half  that  sura  in  the  closing  year  of  the 
decade,  the  attitude  toward  the  industry  remained  nearly  the 
same  as  during  the  days  of  the  gold  rush.  Occasionally,  the 
writers  who  regularly  reviewed  the  conditions  in  the  mining 
region  ventured  to  suggest  that  the  industry  must  lose  in 
importance,  but  various  circumstances  contributed  to  the 
deep-seated  impression  that  there  would  always  be  enough  of  the  precious 
metals  mined  in  California  to  enable  mineral  production  to  keep  its  premier 
position.  This  opinion  was  seemingly  justified  by  the  discovery  and  open- 
ing of  quartz  mines  in  this  and  the  neighboring  State  of  Nevada.  The 
celebrated  Comstock  lode  had  been  discovered,  and  its  argentiferous  quality 
ascertained  as  early  as  1853,  but  it  was  not  until  1859  that  the  richness 
of  the  discovery  became  generally  known,  when  a  rush  to  the  new  mines 
took  place  which  rivaled  those  to  the  Frazer  river  and  the  Klamath  black 
sand  beach  diggings.  The  discoveries  in  Nevada  outranked  in  importance 
any  made  outside  of  the  boundaries  of  the  State,  and  strengthened  the  con- 
viction that  mining  would  always  be  California's  dependable  industry,  an 
opinion  which  did  not  yield  until  the  break  up  of  the  great  landed  estates 
caused  a  diversified  agriculture  to  usurp  first  place. 


CHAPTER  VII 

JOUEXALISTIC  METHODS  OF  THE  LATE  FIFTIES  AND 
EARLY  SIXTIES. 


Long  List  of  Defunct  Newspapers — Papers  Conducted  to  Forward  Political 
Aspirations  of  Owners — Wires  Sparingly  Used  in  Early  Days — Use  of  Italics 
in  Early  Days — The  Tyranny  of  the  Composition  Boom — The  Day  When  Many 
Jobs  Were  Performed  by  One  Person — When  Big  Type  Was  Frowned  Upon — ■ 
Effects  of  the  Cheapening  of  White  Paper- — The  Big  Increase  of  Price  During 
the  Civil  War — Early  Day  Eeporting  Criticised — Not  Many  Trained  Reporters- 
Editors  Guess  What  Reporters  Fail  to  Discover — Facts  Carefully  Concealed  by 
Papers — The  Press  and  the  Slavery  Question  on  the  Outbreak  of  the  War — A 
Minister  Who  Would  Not  Pray  for  the  President — Few  Editors  Called  to  an 
Accounting  for  Their  Proclivities — A  Civil  War  Fighting  Editor — Newspaper 
Offices  Gutted  When  Lincoln  Was  Assassinated^Adherence  of  California  to  Gold 
Money — The  Specific  Contract  Legislation — Influence  Exerted  by  the  Press  to 
Promote   Honest   Monetary   Dealing. 


HE  most  of  the  daily  and  weekly  publications  of  San 
Francisco  started  during  the  fifties  had  passed  out  of 
existence  before  Sumter  was  fired  upon  in  April,  1861, 
but  there  was  a  formidable  list  of  survivors  of  all  shades 
of  opinion  still  bidding  for  public  favor.  The  fortunes 
of  some  of  the  latter  had  suffered  greatly  through  a 
tendency  to  run  counter  to  the  desire  for  better  munici- 
pal conditions,  notably  the  Herald,  which  lost  the  bulk 
of  its  advertising  patronage  after  the  shooting  of  James  King  of  William 
by  Casey.  It  was  nearly  ruined,  but  managed  to  keep  alive  until  1862, 
when  it  finally  collapsed  because  its  Southern  supporters  had  taken  them- 
selves to  regions  where  secession  was  more  popular  than  in  San  Francisco. 
Included  in  the  number  of  the  departed  journals  were  several  whose 
editors  had  enjoyed  a  transitory  popularity,  and  others  which  the  records 
and  the  evidence  of  the  papers  themselves  suggest  had  no  excuse  for  con- 
tinued existence.  The  long  mortality  report  embraces  the 
California  Star,  San  Francisco's  first  paper ;  the  Pacific,  which 
ran  its  course  in  a  couple  of  years ;  Prices  Current,  still  more 
ephemeral,  lasting  only  a  year;  the  Public  Balance,  with  a 
life  of  six  months  to  its  credit;  the  Evening  Picayune,  the 
California  Daily  Courier,  La  Californian,  which  catered  in  a  literary  way 
for  the  very  considerable  French  colony  of  early  days;  the  Benton  Critic, 
the  American  Daily,  the  True  Californian,  which  supported  all  the  policies 
of  the  Vigilance  Committee  and  had  the  reputation  of  being  edited  under  its 
auspices;  the  Dailv  Globe;  the  Pathfinder,  started  in  1856  to  boom  Fre- 

53 


A  Long 
List  of 
Defunct 
Journals 


54  Journalism  in  California 

mont's  candidacy  for  the  Presidency;  the  Golden  Era,  the  first  literary 
paper;  the  Whig  and  the  Catholic  Standard  Weekly;  the  Bugle,  a  campaign 
paper;  the  (California  Chronicle,  the  Commercial  Advertiser  and  the  Cali- 
fornia Eegister, 

This  extended  death  record  might  convey  the  impression  that  San 
Francisco  was  a  had  place  for  newspapers  in  the  early  days,  if  it  Avere  not 
for  the  fact  that  the  survivals  were  numerous  enough  to  give  assurance  that 

newspaper  readers  were  by  no  means  deprived  of  the  oppor- 
All  Their  tunity  to  exercise  a  clioice  of  policies,  for  they  reflected  all 

One  shades  of  opinion.     Nor  does  the  fact  that  several  other  papers 

Basket  entered  the  contest  for  favor  wliile  the   Civil   War  M'ag   in 

progress  dispute  the  accuracy  of  this  assertion.  That  merely 
emphasizes  an  opinion,  expressed  elsewhere,  that  the  affections  of  San  Fran- 
ciscans in  the  early  stages  of  the  growth  of  the  city  were  not  long  fixed  on 
any  particular  object,  and  that  publishers,  as  a  consequence,  were  compelled 
to  keep  in  accord  with  their  following  or  pay  the  penalty.  This  disposition, 
and  the  fact  that  the  disappearing  journals  put  all  their  eggs  in  one  basket, 
not  having  acquired  the  modern  method  of  holding  readers  by  various  de- 
vices, explains  the  excessive  mortality  above  noted,  and  the  further  fact  that 
most  of  the  papers  which  weathered  the  storms  of  the  fifties  and  lived  well 
into  the  two  later  decades  have  since  gone  on  the  scrap  heap. 

The  resident  of  San  Francisco  in  this  exposition  year,  familiar  with 
the  public  journals  of  the  city,  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  scan  the  list  of 
papers  surviving  the  fifties,  will  note  that  few  of  them  have  attained  to  the 

dignity  of  a  jubilee.  The  Alta  California,  founded  in  1849, 
^"  *^f  was  run  with  varying  success  until  the  nineties,  when  it  was 

^}jg  compelled  to  succumb  to  a  steady  loss  of  patronage  which 

Civil  War         followed  the  acceptance  of  the  opinion  that  its  owner,  a  man 

of  wealth,  had  acquired  it  to  advance  his  personal  fortunes. 
As  is  usual  in  such  cases,  the  news  side  of  the  paper  was  neglected,  every- 
thing being  subordinated  to  the  object  for  which  the  paper  was  published. 
Perhaps  the  fact  that  it  was  forced  to  turn  a  political  somersault  contributed 
to  the  result.  The  Herald,  driven  out  of  existence  by  the  Bulletin,  scarcely 
heard  the  first  guns  of  the  Eebellion.  Tlie  Fireman's  Journal,  afterward 
the  Spirit  of  the  Times,  had  the  distinction  for  a  while  of  being  San  Fran- 
cisco's only  sporting  paper.  It  ceased  publication  some  time  after  the  death 
of  its  founder,  Marcus  D.  Boruck,  who,  like  many  of  the  early  editors,  was 
as  much  politician  as  journalist.  The  Call,  established  by  a  group  of 
printers  in  1856,  was  purchased  by  M.  H.  de  Young  in  1913  and  ceased 
publication  as  a  morning  daily.  The  Sunday  Varieties  endured  until 
1865.  It  and  the  Police  Gazette,  which  died  in  the  same  year,  furnished 
publications  which  met  a  want  that  seemed  toleral)ly  persistent  in  the  days 
before  a  better  class  of  weekly  papers  made  their  appearance.  Of  the  long 
list,  only  the  Bulletin,  the  German  Demokrat  and  the  Abend  Zeitung  of 
the  daily  publications  have  endured  to  the  present  day.  The  Daily  Times, 
which  began  as  the  Town  Talk,  was  merged  with  the  Alta  in  1869,  and 
the  California  Mail,  started  in  1876,  received  its  quietus  at  the  hands  of 
an  Englishman  named  Dalzell,  who  married  the  actress  Dickey  Lingard. 
Dalzell  sought  to  make  the  Mail  brilliantly  sensational  and  was  meeting 
with  measurable  success  until  he  made  the  error  of  converting  his  journal 
into  an  advocate  of  the  candidacy  of  a  Democratic  aspirant  for  the  United 


Methods  of  Late  Fifties  and  Early  Sixties  55 

States    Senatorship,    who   withdrew   his   helpinij   hand   when    tcanchilously 
beaten  in  the  race. 

It  cannot  truthfully  be  said  that  there  was  a  great  improvement  in 
journalistic  methods  after  the  opening  of  the  overland  telegraph  in  ISOl. 
Although  theoretically,  the  metropolis  of  the  Pacific  Coast  was  put  in  close 
touch  with  the  East,  the  wires  were  used  so  sparingly  for  the  transmission 
of  intelligence  the  city  remained  as  provincial  as  in  the  days  when  the 
steamers  and  the  pony  express  supplied  editors  with  the  bulk 
Wires  of  their  copy.     But  there  was  a  distinct  improvement  in  the 

U^ed"^  ^  appearance  of  the  newspaper,  Avhich  became  more  formidable 

in  size,  the  number  of  columns  of  the  more  prosperous  jour- 
nals being  increased,  but  the  four-page  paper  remained  the 
favorite  form.  In  the  advertising  columns,  and  in  those  parts  of  the  paper 
devoted  to  news  and  miscellaneous  reading  large  type  was  eschewed.  The 
editorial  columns  were  helped  out  by  the  use  of  a  larger  faced  type,  but 
that  was  more  for  the  purpose  of  enhancing  the  dignity  of  the  utterances  of 
the  man  on  the  tripod  than  to  a  desire  to  spare  the  eyes  of  readers  or  to 
emphasize  the  subject  matter.  The  latter  result  was  secured  by  a  liberal 
use  of  italics,  the  employment  of  which  in  great  quantity  was  supposed  to 
stamp  an  editorial  as  a  forcible  expression  of  opinion. 

Those  were  the  days  in  which  the  composition  room  had  more  to  do 
with  the  make  up  of  a  daily  paper  than  it  has  at  present.    The  printer  had 
his  ideals  and  he  succeeded  in  imposing  them  upon  the  editor.     During  the 
fifties,    sixties   and   seventies   there   was   little   difference   of 
Tvrannv  opinion     inside     or     outside     newspaper    offices     respecting 

of  the  typography.     The  advertiser  was  apt  to  accept  without  chal- 

Printer  lenge  the  judgment  of  the  foreman,  Avho  was  convinced  that 

big  display  type  was  a  blemish.  There  was  a  saying  cur- 
rent in  newspaper  offices  that  it  was  impossible  to  make  a  nonpareil  paper 
Avith  long  primer  type,  and  when  the  printer  employed  the  term  nonpareil 
in  this  connection  he  had  in  mind  the  definition  of  the  word  and  attached  to 
it  its  full  meaning.  A  knowledge  of  this  fact  will  help  the  reader  to  under- 
stand what  the  author  of  "The  Story  of  the  Files"  means  when  she  said 
that  the  community  Avas  startled  by  the  appearance  of  an  editorial  paragraph 
in  the  American  Flag  "set  up  entirely  in  caps."  "We  have  no  detailed 
information  respecting  the  trouble  brought  upon  himself  by  the  innovating 
editor,  Calvin  B.  ]\IcDonald,  who  was  nicknamed  "the  thunderer,"  but 
it  is  safe  to  assume  that  the  most  savage  of  the  arraignments  of  Copperheads 
for  which  he  was  famous  in  his  day  provoked  less  startled  surprise  than  thi-- 
departure  from  journalistic  precedent. 

A  comparison  of  the  typography  of  the  years  now  under  discussion 
with  that  of  the  present,  day  discloses  a  change  which  was  so  gradually 
effected  that  few  editors  could  tell  when  and  how  it  came  about.  The 
variation  is  all  the  more  remarkable  because  it  synchronizes 
Printer,  Pub-  ^^.-^j^  ^j^^  growth  of  the  power  and  influence  of  the  typo- 
Editor  graphical  unions  and  the  expansion  of  the  use  of  machinery 
Combined  in  the  production  of  newspapers.  It  really  amounted  to  a 
complete  abdication  of  the  privilege  which  the  printer  once 
exercised  of  dictating  how  the  paper  should  be  made  up.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  did  not  constitute  a  usurpation  on  the  part  of  the  printer,  it  was 
rather  a  crystallization  of  a  practice  which  had  its  beginning  when  news- 


56  Journalism  in  California 

papers  first  came  into  existence,  because,  as  often  as  otherwise,  tlie  printer, 
the  publisher  and  the  editor  were  combined  in  one  person.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  go  back  to  the  infancy  of  journalism  to  find  instances  of  such  a  com- 
bination. San  Francisco  furnishes  several.  Xot  a  few  of  its  early  papers 
were  established  by  men  whose  knowledge  of  the  "art  preservative  of  all 
arts"  was  gained  before  the  ambition  to  fill  the  editorial  chair  took  posses- 
sion of  them,  and  there  are  many  cases  of  printers  uniting  for  the  purpose 
of  starting  papers  which  achieved  success.  The  Morning  Call  owed  its 
start  to  the  action  of  several  printers  who  united  their  fortunes  for  that 
purpose.  It  is  true  that  they  lost  control  after  the  paper  had  gained  im- 
portance, but  they  left  their  traditions,  which  were  closely  adhered  to  for 
many  years. 

If  the  editors  of  the  fifties  and  the  sixties  could  have  foreseen  the 
changes  which  a  half  a  century  would  bring  about  they  would  have  wondered 
why  they  should  occur.  It  would  have  been  difficult  to  convince  them  that 
a  statement  made  in  type  three  or  four  inches  in  length  could 
^  ®     «  carry  more  weight  than  one  printed  in  nonpareil  or  agate. 

Small  Their  own   experience  taught  them  that   violent   sensations 

Tjrpe  could  be  produced  by  language  expressed  in  the  minutest  of 

characters.  They  could  not  have  been  persuaded  that  a  gen- 
eration would  follow  them  which  would  become  so  accustomed  to  loud  type 
that  it  would  lose  the  ability  to  comprehend  anything  modestly  stated. 
Advertisers  who  had  preserved  some  idea  of  relativity  would  have  been 
equally  surprised  if  they  could  have  peered  into  the  future  and  seen  the 
devices  resorted  to  by  their  successors  to  attract  attention,  but  they  would 
probably  have  divined  much  more  quickly  than  the  editor  why  it  is  necessary 
to  shout  very  loud  if  one  desires  to  be  heard  above  a  bedlam  of  voices. 
Being  gifted  with  discernment,  the  advertisers  of  the  days  we  are  speaking 
of  were  content  to  proclaim  their  wares  in  moderate  terms  and  type,  and 
they  doubtless  carried  as  much  conviction  as  the  bigger  type  and  greater 
space  employed  in  1915. 

In  the  early  sixties,  there  was  much  less  talk  about  Journalism  by  news- 
paper men  than  there  is  at  present.  It  is  true  that  there  were  fewer  in  the 
business,  which  at  that  time  Avas  not  conceded  to  be  a  profession.  It  is 
probable,  however,  that  a  consensus  of  editorial  opinion  in 
Whitelaw  <^       Francisco  at  any  time  in  the  sixties  would  have  been  in 

of  the  Paper  accord  with  that  later  expressed  by  Whitelaw  Eeid  in  an 
of  the  Future  address  delivered  at  Xenia,  Ohio,  in  which  he  pictured  the 
newspaper  of  the  future  as  a  sheet  in  which  the  advertiser 
would  be  a  negligible  quantity,  and,  therefore,  small  and  convenient  to 
handle.  It  would  be  written  by  Macaulays,  with  the  faculty  of  observation 
highly  trained,  and  Avell  enough  equipped  in  a  literary  way  to  tell  a  story 
as  interestingly  as  the  gifted  English  historian.  When  the  editor  of  the 
New  York  Tribune  indulged  in  this  surmise  he  had  no  vision  of  the  linotype, 
and  the  wonderful  effect  it  would  have  upon  the  production  of  newspapers, 
and  he  must  have  been  influenced  by  the  high  price  of  paper  which  obtained 
during  the  war  and  down  to  the  time  when  the  process  of  manufacturing 
from  wood  pulp  was  perfected.  Up  to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
the  paper  employed  in  bookmaking  and  for  printing  newspapers  was  made 
of  rags,  and,  while  machinery  had  been  employed  as  early  as  1803,  no 
very  marked  results  in  the  way  of  cheapening  were  effected  until  after  1853, 


Methods  of  Late  Fifties  and  Early  Sixties  57 

when  a  machine  was  invented  by  a  Frenchman  which  paved  the  way  to 
supplanting  the  hand-made  product. 

On  the  eve  of  the  Civil  War,  the  effects  of  the  improvement  in  the 
manufacture  of  paper  were  beginning  to  be  felt  in  reduced  prices.  It  does 
not   apjiear,   however,   that  the  reduction   operated  as   a  stimulus   to  the 

production  of  larger  papers  during  the  ante  helium  period. 
Adherence  The  rivalry  between  publishers  took  another  form  than  that 
Policies  ^^  trying  to  outdo  each  other  in  the  size  of  their  issues.     As  a 

matter  of  fact,  it  was  largely  confined  to  bidding  for  favor 

by  adherence  to  a  policy.  The  competing  journals  were 
apparently  satisfied  to  operate  in  the  fields  which  they  had  created  for  them- 
selves by  the  expression  of  political  or  other  opinions.  As  already  stated, 
the  Bulletin,  after  the  adoption  of  the  Consolidation  Act,  became  the  ex- 
ponent of  extreme  ideas  of  individualism  and  economy.  The  Alta's  free 
soil  proclivities  were  maintained  under  the  management  of  Fred  Llac- 
Crellish,  The  Call,  which  came  into  the  possession  of  Pickering,  Fitch  and 
Simonton  after  its  foundation  by  a  number  of  printers  in  1856,  endeavored 
to  occupy  a  neutral  position,  seeking  the  favor  of  all  classes  and  succeeded 
to  such  an  extent  that  before  the  end  of  the  sixty  decade  it  undoubtedly  had 
a  greater  circulation  than  any  of  its  competitors. 

If  any  disposition  had  existed  to  break  away  from  the  stereotyped  four- 
page  issues  of  the  fifties  it  would  have  been  checked  by  the  sudden  rise 
of  the  price  of  paper  which  followed  the  outbreak  of  hostilities  between  the 

Xorth  and  South.  The  advance  was  not  confined  to  San 
Paper^urkig  Francisco.  In  all  parts  of  the  East  publishers  found  it  nec- 
the  Civil  essary  to  advance  their  subscription  rates,  but  such  a  course 

War  was   not   imposed    on    San    Francisco   papers   because    their 

charges  to  subscribers  were  high  enough  to  bear  the  increase. 
But  there  was  no  temptation  between  1861  and  1865  to  increase  the  cost 
of  newspaper  production  by  the  process  of  enlargement  or  by  engaging  in 
enterprises  which  involved  the  expenditure  of  extraordinary  sums  of  money. 
It  is  not  surprising  that  this  should  have  been  the  case.  With  the  best 
intentions,  publishers  compelled  to  pay  IS^A  cents  a  pound  for  printing 
paper  would  not  be  encouraged  to  put  forth  blanket  sheets  such  as  those 
issued  by  all  the  great  metropolitan  dailies  of  the  twentieth  century.  This 
high  cost  was  not  maintained  at  all  times  between  the  years  named,  but  it 
remained  at  a  very  high  average  during  the  entire  period,  and  for  many 
years  afterward  it  was  sold  at  a  figure  calculated  to  deter  even  the  enter- 
prising publisher  from  thoughts  of  giving  his  patrons  more  for  their  money. 
It  has  been  said  that  the  art  of  reporting  was  not  highly  developed 
during  the  fifties,  and  that  statement  could  be  applied  with  equal  truthful- 
ness to  the  decade  following,  and  especially  to  the  reporting  for  the  jour- 
nals which  appeared  to  have  established  themselves  in  the 
Reporting  public  favor.  In  1887,  George  E.  Barnes,  who  was  then  ^vrit- 
Early  i^o  fo^  the  Morning  Call,  indulged  in  some  retrospective  de- 

Days  scriptive  suggested  by  the  sight  of  a  copy  of  that  publication 

produced  thirty  years  earlier.  He  said:  "Speaking  of  the 
reportorial  work  as  it  appears  in  this  minute  specimen  of  journalism,  it  must 
be  conceded  that  it  is  beneath  contempt.  Eeporters  and  the  material  worthy 
of  reporting  were  scarce  in  those  days.  There  were  Father  Taylor.  TSTed 
Knight,  Huffner,  George  Dawson,  Urmy,  Cremony,  Manny  Noah,  Living- 


58  Journalism  in  California 

stone,  Hittell  and  one  or  two  others  on  the  hirger  papers,  and  a  good  deal 
of  the  reporting  when  the  people  began  to  weary  of  bald  fact  was  much 
in  the  style  of  the  reporter  described  by  Butler.  *  *  True  or 
false,  it  is  all  one  to  him.  *  *  He  is  little  concerned  whether 
it  is  good  or  bad,  for  that  does  not  make  it  more  or  less  news,  and  if  there 
is  any  difference  he  loA'es  the  bad  best,  because  it  is  said  to  come  soonest." 
Barnes  thought  tliis  condition  of  affairs  was  happily  past  when  he  wrote 
in  1887.  Time  and  population  had  cured  all  the  defects  and  journalism 
was  on  a  high  plane,  and  "from  a  mere  parasite,  gaml)ler  or  censurer,  the 
editor  has  come  to  be  as  Xapoleon  the  First  said,  'a  giver  of  advice,  a 
regent  of  sovereigns,  a  tutor  of  nations.' " 

It  does  not  appear  that  this  lofty  plane  was  reached  during  the  years 
while  the  Civil  War  was  in  progress.  The  reporting  throughout  the  sixties 
was  not  sufficiently  bettered  to  make  improvement  visible.     The  reporters 

were  built  on  the  same  lines  as  those  described  by  Barnes,  » 

p^®  and  many  of  them  were  survivals  from  the  earlier  day.     Un-  ■ 

of  der  some  circumstances,  it  might  be  supposed  that  apparent 

News  dullness  was  due  to  enforced  brevity,  but  such  an  idea  would 

be  promptly  dismissed  by  the  investigator  who  can  find  evi- 
dence in  abundance  that  there  was  plenty  of  space  to  spare  for  inanities 
grouped  under  the  heading  of  "Miscellaneous,"  or  for  articles  marked 
"contributed,"  which  discussed  political  and  philosophical  subjects  at  great 
length.  The  modern  editor  will  find  no  difficulty  in  determining  the  true 
cause  of  the  poverty  of  local  and  State  intelligence  in  the  papers  of  the 
sixties.  It  was  due  chiefly  to  lack  of  training  along  the  lines  of  observation, 
with  the  result  that  most  of  the  time  the  reporter  was  unable  to  furnish 
details,  not  because  they  were  not  desired  for  the  thirst  for  intelligence  was 
as  keen  in  the  sixties  as  it  is  now,  but  because  he  did  not  see  enough 
to  be  able  to  write  a  story.  As  for  Barnes'  queer  assumption  "that  material 
worthy  of  reporting  was  scarce  in  those  days,"  it  is  utterly  negatived  by  the 
undoubted  fact  that  the  most  of  them  crowded  more  excitement  into 
twenty-four  hours  than  is  now  experienced  in  a  week. 

Certainly,  there  was  plenty  to  report  during  the  days  following  the 
election  of  Lincoln,  but  the  reporters  did  not  avail  themselves  of  the  oppor- 
tunity afforded  them.     San  Francisco  was  a  hotbed  of  intriguers,  whose 

schemes  were  freely  conjectured  by  editors,  but  never  exposed 
Tacts  until  the  schemers  showed  their  hands.     INFonths  before  the  i 

Carefully  f^^,^^  „^^^  ^y.^^  fired,  there  was  a  hecfira  of  Southerners  from  ? 

California.     The  purpose  of  their  flight  was  well  understood 

and  darkly  hinted  at  by  editors,  but  there  is  no  description 
of  the  movement  in  the  local  columns  of  the  papers  of  the  time.  When  the 
Confederated  States  adopted  the  act  of  secession  there  was  an  extraordinary 
interest  in  the  actions  of  the  few  Federal  troops  garrisoning  the  apoloijies 
for  forts  which  defended  the  harbor,  but  no  venturesome  reporter  tried  to 
fumish  a  picture  of  possibilities.  There  was  no  censorship,  but  real  infor- 
mation as  to  what  was  going  on  was  as  meager  as  it  was  during  the  progress 
of  the  European  war  of  1914-11)15.  In  1S63,  a  group  of  Confederate  sympa- 
thizers planned  to  capture  a  Pacific  Mail  steamship  with  the  object  of  con- 
verting her  into  a  privateer.  This  accomplished,  the  conspirators  intended 
to  sail  in  their  prize  to  the  scene  of  the  wreck  of  the  Golden  Gate,  where 
another  steamer  of  the  Mail  Company,  the  San  Francisco,  was  endeavoring 


Methods  of  Late  Fifties  and  Early  Sixties  59 

to  recover  the  sunken  treasure.  The  Confederates  hired  a  schooner  and 
crew,  but  the  affair  was  so  bunglingly  conducted  that  the  Custom-house 
authorities  nipped  the  project  in  the  bud.  The  newspapers  knew  what  was 
going  on,  but  were  unwilling  to  take  anyone  into  their  confidence,  and, 
until  the  would-be  privateers  were  haled  into  court,  the  public  had  no  de- 
tailed story  of  an  event  to  which  California's  historian,  Hittell,  accorded 
several  pages. 

The  criticism  of  reporters  quoted  above  indicated  the  attitude  of  the 
press  toward  news  throughout  the  decade.     San  Francisco  was  far  removed 
from  the  scene  of  conflict,  but  there  were  plenty  to  respond  to  the  call  for 
volunteers.     There  were  the  same  scenes  of  excitement  at- 
^  tending  the  recruiting  as  those  witnessed  in  the  East,  but 

Mightily  f^^e  soberness  of  treatment  of  the  quick  response  in  the  news 

Stirred  columns,  and  the  meager  space  allotted  to  recording  the  dis- 

plays of  patriotism  would  have  left  a  stranger  in  ignorance 
of  their  occurrence,  if  the  vehemence  displayed  in  the  editorial  columns  had 
not  made  it  clear  that  San  Francisco  was  mightily  stirred.  Perhaps  it  was 
more  fitting  that  the  exuberance  of  feeling  should  find  expression  in  the 
columns  devoted  to  opinion,  but,  judged  by  modern  standards,  the  city 
editors  were  delinquents,  who  have  left  much  to  imagine  which  might  have 
been  cleared  up  had  their  reporters  been  trained  to  treat  as  interesting  events 
occurrences  which  may  have  seemed  commonplace  to  them  at  the  time. 
Fortunately,  the  reportorial  delinquency  is  fully  repaired  by  the  effusive- 
ness of  the  writing  editors,  whose  invective  leaves  nothing  to  the  imagina- 
tion. Their  rhetoric  was  of  the  sledge-hammer  kind,  and  the  reader  never 
had  any  difficulty  in  determining  who  was  smashed  by  the  blows  delivered. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  war,  sentiment  seemed  to  be  very  nearly  evenly 
balanced  in  California.  In  the  election  of  1860  Lincoln  had  carried  the 
State  by  1000  plurality,  the  Democratic  candidate  receiving  38,000  and 
the  Eepublican  Electors  39,000,  but  there  was  a  rapid  change 
"^^(f  rh^^^  ^^  opinion  when  the  people  grasped  the  idea  that  secession 
Slavery  meant  the   disruption   of   the   Union.     In   an   astonishingly 

Question  brief  period  the  Southern  sympathizer  began  to  lose  caste. 

The  despised  "mudsill'  asserted  himself,  and  presently  con- 
cluded to  cut  loose  from  the  party  whose  leaders  affected  to  despise  him 
and  his  kind.  After  the  first  flurry,  the  fear  that  the  secessionists  might 
succeed  in  gaining  possession  of  the  forts  in  the  harbor  disappeared  and 
Union  men  settled  down  to  the  conviction  that  it  would  be  their  task  to 
prevent  Confederate  operations  in  Arizona  and  in  the  northern  states  of 
Mexico.  The  quota  of  troops  required  of  the  State  was  easily  filled  by 
volunteers  and  recruiting  was  brisk  in  the  city.  The  burst  of  Union 
enthusiasm  did  not,  however,  wholly  extinguish  Southern  sympathy,  nor  did 
it  take  on  an  intolerant  shape.  The  journals  devoted  to  the  jSTorthern 
cause  kept  pace  with  those  of  the  East,  and  some  of  them  were  a  trifle  ahead 
of  the  latter  in  recognizing  that  the  institution  of  slavery  was  doomed.  A 
few  years  before  the  outbreak  of  hostilities  the  Legislature  of  the  State, 
under  Southern  inspiration  had  by  resolution  denounced  Broderick  because 
of  his  stand  in  opposition  to  the  extension  of  slavery;  in  1863  the  same 
body,  by  a  nearly  unanimous  vote,  eulogized  him  as  a  patriot  and  appro- 
priated a  sum  of  money  to  erect  a  monument  to  his  memory  in  Lone  Moun- 
tain Cemetery ;  and  a  year  later,  on  the  4th  of  March,  it  adjourned  out  of 


60  Journalism  in  California 

respect  to  the  memory  of  Thomas  Starr  King,  whose  voice  was  heard  in  the 
pulpit,  on  the  platform  and  in  the  lecture-room  in  appeals  to  California  to 
stand  by  the  flag. 

There  were  ministers,  perhaps,  who  sympathized  with  the  South,  but 
only  one  ventured  to  brave  public  opinion,  and  he  was  quickly  impressed 
with  the  sense  of  his  error  by  a  significant  warning  in  the  shape  of  a  stuffed 

dummy  hanging  at  the  entrance  of  the  door  of  his  church. 
N  t  Pr  V  -^^^  offense  consisted  in  omitting  from  his  service  the  prayer 

for  the  for  the  President  of  the  United  States.     He  took  the  hint, 

President  and,  as  he  was  disinclined  to  offer  supplications  for  one  whom 

he  looked  upon  as  an  enemy  to  his  section,  he  extricated  him- 
self from  an  embarrassing  situation  by  abandoning  the  city  and  returning 
to  his  home  in  the  sunny  South.  Events  of  this  sort  occupied  a  great  deal 
of  space  in  the  editorial  columns  of  the  papers,  and  it  is  to  the  credit  of  the 
citizens  that  they  were  not  possessed  of  the  intolerant  disposition  with  which 
they  were  charged  by  those  with  Democratic  leanings,  for  had  they 
been  the  action  precipitated  by  the  assassination  of  Lincoln  would  certainly 
have  been  anticipated  years  before  it  finally  occurred.  It  is  astonishing 
that  the  violent  expressions  which  were  freely  indulged  in  by  Democratic 
journals  should  have  passed  without  official  rebuke  or  action  of  the  sort 
taken  in  the  case  of  Yallandigham  in  Ohio,  but  it  was  the  policy  of  the  Gov- 
ernment to  close  its  eyes  to  all  but  overt  acts,  and  the  bastile  only  received 
one  or  two  offenders  during  the  long  conflict,  and  they  were  not  taken  from 
the  ranks  of  newspaper  men. 

Perhaps  the  authorities  were  convinced  that  the  defenders  of  the  Union 
were  able  to  attend  to  the  matter  without  assistance,  but  expressions  of 
sympathy  for  the  Confederate  cause  were  not  allowed  to  pass  unnoticed 

by  the  Union  editors.  Particular  attention  was  paid  to  them 
^.   ..  ^  by    Calvin    B.    McDonald,    who    filled    the    columns    of    the 

Fighting  American  Flag,  published  by  D.  0.  McCarthy,  with  denun- 

Editor  ciations  of  the  "Copperheads"  and  their  doings.     McDonald 

was  a  forceful  writer.  He  had  been  in  journalism  since  1854 
in  the  city,  but  did  not  have  the  nickname  of  "the  fighting  editor"  bestowed 
on  him  until  the  flag  was  flred  upon.  Before  that  time,  he  was  more 
disposed  to  drop  into  poetry  than  to  indulge  in  invective.  He  did  not 
part  with  the  poetical  tendency  when  he  donned  the  armor  of  the  fighting 
editor,  but  his  verse  was  of  a  different  sort  and  fitted  in  with  the  spirit 
of  the  times.  He  had  the  faculty  of  arousing  bitter  resentment  in  those 
against  whom  he  directed  his  editorial  shafts,  and  succeeded  in  provoking 
retorts  of  a  sort  which  were  remembered  by  the  community  when  the  day 
of  reckoning  came.  One  of  the  journals  to  which  he  paid  especial  attention 
was  published  by  the  men  who  afterward  founded  the  Examiner.  He  had 
succeeded  in  making  their  paper  so  odious  that  when  the  horrified  com- 
munity heard  the  news  of  Booth's  treasonable  assault  on  the  President  the 
office  of  the  publication  was  gutted.  Similar  treatment  was  accorded  to  the 
Xews  Letter,  whose  proprietor  and  cynical  assistants  never  lost  an  oppor- 
tunity to  show  their  sympathy  with  the  secession  movement.  No  personal 
violence  was  offered  to  the  publishers,  but  that  was  due  to  their  good  for- 
tune in  being  out  of  the  way  of  the  mob  when  it  descended  in  its  wrath  upon 
their  offices. 

While  the  attention  of  editors  during  the  Civil  War  period  was  not 


Methods  of  Late  Fifties  and  Early  Sixties  61 

wholly  engrossed  by  the  conflict,  there  was  more  written  about  it,  and  its 
effects  on  the  State,  than  any  other  subject.  The  attitude  of  California 
as  voiced  by  the  press  of  the  State  in  those  days  was  not  always  clearly 
understood  at  the  East ;  but  that  is  not  surprising  when  it  is  borne  in 
mind  that  there  was  considerable  difference  of  opinion  concerning  the  proper 
course  to  pursue  in  the  vital  matter  of  the  practical  refusal  to  accept  the 
paper  emitted  by  the  Federal  Government.  There  was  no  concerted  action. 
It  was  simply  a  case  of  a  people  having  the  ability  to  keep  in 
p  circulation  a  money  which  less  fortunate  sections  of  the  Union 

and  Gold  were  unable  to  obtain  in  sufficient  quantities  to  supply  their 

Payments  needs,  deciding  to  adhere  to  that  which  they  were  accustomed 

and  refusing  to  substitute  for  it  a  variable  currency.  There 
was  a  marked  division  of  opinion  respecting  the  propriety  of  that  course, 
but  the  cleavage  was  not  along  well  defined  political  lines.  The  aversion 
to  paper  money  was  not  due  to  lack  of  sympathy  with  the  Union  cause, 
although  there  were  many  who  feared  that  it  might  be  so  construed,  among 
the  number  Governor  Leland  Stanford,  who,  in  a  message  to  the  Legisla- 
ture, adversely  criticised  the  action  of  the  State  Treasurer,  who  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  depreciation  of  greenbacks  and  paid  California's  proportion 
of  the  direct  war  tax  in  legal  tender  notes.  Stanford  proceeded  upon  the 
theory  that  the  State  should  disregard  the  depreciation  and  pay  in  gold, 
but  the  "Washington  authorities  answered  that  the  legal  tender  money  had 
been  advisedly  received  and  that  if  gold  had  been  paid  California  would 
have  contributed  more  than  its  quota. 

The  mercantile  element  of  San  Francisco  displayed  less  sensibility  and 
adopted  a  course  which   resulted   in  greatly  stimulating  business.     They 
adhered  steadfastly  to  gold  currency,  and  used  the  metal  to  great  advan- 
tage making  purchases  of  greenbacks  with  which  they  met 
Result  their  Eastern  obligations.     As  the  range  of  prices  of  most 

Adherence         commodities  sold  in  the  California  markets  was  nearly  as  high 
to  Gold  as  in  sections  where  legal  tender  money  was  used,  the  prac- 

tice resulted  in  great  profit  to  the  merchants,  and  their  pros- 
perity had  a  stimulating  effect  on  industry  generally.  The  necessity  of 
buying  greenbacks  created  a  lively  dealing  in  them,  and,  while  in  Xew  York 
gold  was  qnoted  at  a  premium,  on  the  exchange  in  San  Francisco  the  process 
was  reversed,  and  greenbacks  were  bought  at  a  discount.  The  tmcertainty 
regarding  the  propriety  of  the  course  was  mirrored  in  the  editorial  columns 
of  the  newspapers,  but  the  discussion  reflected  the  current  prejudice  in 
favor  of  gold  money,  which  dated  back  to  the  time  of  the  formation  of  the 
State  Constitution  at  Monterey,  when  an  article  was  inserted  which  abso- 
lutely prohibited  the  emission  of  paper  money.  It  was  impossible  to  remove 
this  prejudice,  which  found  concrete  expression  in  specific  agreements  to 
pay  in  gold.  These  agreements  were  authorized  by  statute,  and  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States  affirmed  the  validity  of  such  contracts. 

The  active  dealing  in  legal  tender  currency  was  a  source  of  scandal 
and  the  charge  was  made  that  the  Legislature  was  improperly  influenced, 
but  there  was  no  evidence  forthcominsr  to  substantiate  the  loose  statements 
concerning  the  matter  which  were  made  by  the  editor  of  the  American  Flag, 
who,  when  cited  to  the  bar,  refused  to  answer  the  questions  put  to  him. 
The  probabilities  favor  the  belief  that  the  Legislature  in  refusing  to 
repeal  the  legislation  authorizing  specific  contracts  was  in  accord  with  public 


62 


Journalism  in  California 


Specific 

Contract 

Legislation 


opinion.  Although  the  discussions  of  the  subject  were  voluminous,  it  does 
not  appear  that  tlie  editors  were  apprehensive  that  the  use  of  paper  money 
would  result  in  driving  gold  out  of  California.  At  the 
time,  the  annual  production  from  the  placers  and  other 
sources  was  still  great  enough  to  give  assurance  that  there 
would  be  enough  gold  to  supply  the  people  of  the  State  with  an 
abundance  of  non-fluctuating  money.  There  was  some  percep- 
tion of  the  fact  that  so  long  as  the  State  could  maintain  a  favorable  balance 
in  its  dealings  with  the  rest  of  the  world  its  gold  coin  could  not  be  drawn 
away  from  it,  provided  steps  were  taken  to  prevent  its  being  sold  in  order  to 
obtain  a  cheaper  money,  and  it  was  assumed  that  the  specific  contract  act 
guarded  against  such  a  contingency,  an  assumption  borne  out  by  the  fact 
that  Californians  have  retained  the  metals  to  this  day  as  their  principal 
circulating  medium. 

There  is  one  circumstance  connected  with  the  retention  of  or  adherence 
to  gold  money  that  deserves  especial  mention,  for  it  exhibits  in  a  marked 
degree  the  power  of  the  press  to  influence  public  opinion.  There  is  no 
question  but  that  when  greenbacks  began  to  afford  an  oppor- 
tunity to  the  unscrupulous  to  scale  their  debts  by  paying  in 
depreciated  legal  tender  money,  a  disposition  to  take  advan- 
tage of  the  situation  existed,  which  might  easily  have  become 
general  had  not  the  most  reputable  part  of  the  press  constantly 
denounced  the  immorality  of  the  proceeding.  So  severe  was  the  denun- 
ciation of  those  who  sought  to  escape  their  obligations  that  a  genuine  fear 
of  ostracism  was  created,  which  was  not  entirely  groundless,  for  there  are 
same  instances  of  individuals  seeking  to  pay  their  gold  debts  in  depreciated 
currency  being  held  up  to  public  scorn.  That  there  were  not  many  in- 
stances and  perhaps  a  general  departure  from  the  straight  path  of  fair 
dealing  was  chiefly  due  to  the  insistent  advice  of  the  newspapers  that  it  pays 
to  be  honest.  They  may  have  been  wrong  in  advocating  a  policy  which  put 
them  out  of  touch  with  the  monetary  system  of  the  major  part  of  the  Union, 
but  they  were  unquestionably  right  when  they  advised  in  strenuous  terms 
that  depreciated  greenbacks  should  not  be  used  to  pay  debts  incurred  while 
the  State  was  on  a  gold  basis. 


The 

Influence 
of  the 
Press 


CHAPTER  VIII 


THE  CHEONICLE  ENTERS  THE  FIELD  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO 

JOURNALISM. 

Advent  of  the  Examiner — Its  Founders — The  Youthful  Projectors  of  The  Chronicle 
— Acumen  Displayed  in  Selecting  a  Title — An  Amusement  Loving  Public — A 
Newspaper  From  the  Very  Beginning — San  Francisco  Eestaurants  During  the 
Sixties — The  First  Home  of  The  Chronicle — Hustling  to  Get  Money  for  a 
Start — Eapid  Growth  of  Popularity  Eases  Finances — Mark  Twain 's  Contribu- 
tions to  the  Dramatic  Chronicle— The  Budding  Author  Has  Desk  Room  in  Dra- 
matic Chronicle  Office — Bret  Harte  Helps  Out  With  Interesting  Squibs — The 
Criticisms  of  Tremenhere  Johns  of  the  Dramatic  Chronicle — The  Efforts  of  the 
Beginners  Cause  Amusement — Prosperity  Soon  Follows  Success — Movement  to 
New  Quarters  on  Montgomery  Street — A  Handsome  Sign,  of  ^Vhich  the  Youth- 
ful Publishers  Were  Very  Proud — A  Theater  Manager  and  Actress  Who  Dis- 
like Criticism — First  News  of  the  Assassination  of  President  Abraham  Lincoln — 
Early  Efforts  to  Illustrate  a  Daily  Newspaper — Extras  Tell  of  the  Gutting  of 
Local    Newspaper    Offices. 


HE  most  notable  journalistic  occurrence  of  the  last  year 
of  the  Civil  War  was  the  birth  of  the  only  two  English 
morning  papers  that  have  survived  the  vicissitudes  of 
the  intervening  fifty  years.  It  was  in  1865  that  the 
San  Francisco  Chronicle  and  the  Examiner  made  their 
advent  in  the  field  of  journalism  in  this  city,  but  the 
circumstances  attending  their  entrance  were  widely 
divergent.  The  Examiner  was  practically  founded  on 
the  ruins  of  the  Democratic  Press,  which  was  swept  out  of  existence  in  an 
ebullition  of  popular  rage  provoked  by  the  assassination  of  President  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  Its  nominal  proprietors  were  William  S.  Moss,  B.  F.  Wash- 
ington, Charles  L.  Weller,  Philip  A.  Roach  and  George  Penn  Johnson. 
They  may  not  have  deserved  all  the  opprobrium  heaped  upon  them  by  the 
fighting  editor  of  the  American  Flag,  but  the  columns  of  the  new  candidate 
for  public  favor  indicate  that  the  arrangement  entered  into  by  Grant  and 
Lee  at  Appomattox  was  no  more  to  their  liking  under  the  changed  name 
and  conditions  than  when  the  summary  gutting  of  their  office  was  resorted 
to  by  an  infuriated  populace.  The  Examiner  also  differed  from  the  other 
new  competitor  for  patronage  in  being  conducted  by  men  with  journalistic 
training,  who  had  the  backing  of  a  political  party  by  no  means  disheartened 
by  its  loss  of  power  during  the  war,  and  which,  before  its  echoes  had  died 
away,  regained  control  of  the  State  offices. 

It  is  almost  impossible  to  describe  the  beginnings  of  The  Chronicle  in 
the  sober  terms  of  historical  narration.     The  attendant  circumstances  and 

63 


64  Journalism  in  California 

the  subsequent  career  of  the  paper  give  a  tinge  of  romance  to  a  statement 
of  what  would  otherwise  be  prosaic  and  very  commonpUice  facts.  Other 
boys  with  large  ambitions  have  started  papers,  and  some  have  achieved  a 
measure  of  success,  but  none  that  we  know  of  has  realized  as 
P^®   ,  fnlly  what  was  sought  to  be  accomplished  by  the  youthful 

of  The  founders  of  the  San  Francisco  Chronicle.     The  story  of  the 

Chronicle  starting  and  growth  of  the  paper  shows  that  its  success  was 

not  due  to  adventitious  circumstances.  It  was  founded  at  a 
time  when  the  ventures  of  others  were  meeting  with  failure,  and  its  continu- 
ous growth  was  attended  by  a  constant  battle  for  public  approval,  but  not  by 
truckling  to  the  holders  of  every  vagrant  sentiment,  or  by  the  adoption  of 
a  neutral  attitude.  The  Chronicle  had  opinions  from  the  first  day  that  it 
saw  the  light,  and  did  not  shrink  from  maintaining  them  with  persistence 
and  courage  at  all  times. 

Perhaps  no  journal  attaining  to  prominence  was  founded  under  circum- 
stances so  singular.  Although  Charles  and  M.  II.,  who  were  soon  to  be 
familiarly  known  as  the  de  Young  boys,  aimed  from  the  very  beginning  to 
create  a  newspaper,  they  modestly  started  their  enterprise  as  a 
The  First  theater  house  bill,  under  the  title  of  "The  Dramatic  Chron- 
of  rphe  icle."     An  examination  of  the  initial  number,  which  appeared 

Chronicle  on  January  16,  1865,  at  once  discloses  the  fact  that  the  title 

was  a  misnomer.  Throughout  its  sixteen  columns  there  is 
plenty  of  evidence  that  its  publishers  were  dominated  by  the  idea  of  making 
it  particularly  interesting  to  theatergoers,  but  its  sub  title,  "A  Daily  Eecord 
of  Affairs  Local,  Critical  and  Theatrical,"  revealed  what  was  in  the  mind  of 
its  founders,  and  proclaimed  a  purpose  which  was  well  foreshadowed  in  the 
four  pages  of  the  little  10  by  131/2  inch  sheet. 

As  interesting,  perhaps,  as  the  fact  that  the  Dramatic  Chronicle  was 
a  newspaper  from  the  first  day  of  its  publication  is  the  acumen  displayed 
by  Charles  and  M.  H.  de  Young  in  selecting  the  drama  as  the  vehicle  by 
which  recognition  and  popularity  could  be  secured  for  their 
^.  .  venture.     Never   was    there   a    community   more    completely 

Conjure  devoted  to  the  pleasures  of  the  theater  than  San  Francisco. 

With  From  the  day  of  the  first  performance  in  the  city  by  a  semi- 

professional  troupe  in  1848,  down  to  the  time  when  the 
Dramatic  Chronicle  saw  the  light,  the  drama  had  been  a  passion  in  the  city 
by  the  Golden  Gate.  Its  citizens  prided  themselves  on  the  fact  that  the 
greatest  artists  visited  them,  and  the  writer  of  "The  Annals"  takes  partic- 
ular pains  to  mention  that  they  knew  what  was  good  and  would  not  tolerate 
that  which  was  bad.  Doubtless,  he  could  furnish  evidence  to  substantiate 
his  assertion  that  visiting  actors,  whose  fame  was  national,  admitted  that 
the  critics  of  the  numerous  papers  of  the  early  fifties  were  discerning  men. 
That  they  did  not  hesitate  to  say  in  plain  terms  about  a  play,  and  those 
who  interpreted  its  characters,  just  what  they  thought,  is  attested  by  many 
surviving,  scathing  criticisms. 

The  spirit  of'  the  fifties  still  survived  in  1865,  when  the  Dramatic 
Chronicle  began  to  bid  for  favor,  and  no  better  method  of  getting  public 
attention  could  have  been  adopted  than  that  of  the  "de  Youiig  boys," 
aged  19  and  17,  respectively,  Charles  de  Young  being  the  senior.  Had 
they  simply  got  out  a  play  bill,  their  enterprise  must  have  ended  as  it 
began,  but  they  did  nothing  of  the  sort.     The  only  resemblance  to  a  pro- 


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BABES  IN  THE  WOOD  I: 


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Photograph  Gallery  sEZ",^*  ^  _ 


A.  0.  UIETZ  &  CO., 


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Of  al  OnAUr  madinad  BAt«  : 


TITLE    PAGE    OP   THE    DRAMATIC    CHRONICLE 
Showing  form  in  whicli  San  Francisco  Clironicle  first  appeared. 


>-*^*iS^'  V-s'^A'^f^-**'' 


ATIC  GH 

BestAdvertisins  Mediura 


THE  HOME   OF   THE    SAN   FRANCISCO   CHRONICLE   ON 
MONTGOMERY  STREET  IN  1865 


Up-to-Date   Methods  of  The  Chronicle  65 


gramme  is  that  which  the  formal  mode  of  printing  the  names  of  characters 
and  players  presents.  In  all  other  particulars  it  differed,  and  in  the 
material  one  of  hour  of  issue.    The  publishers  of  the  Dramatic  Chronicle  did 

not  wait  until  the  theaters  opened.  It  was  well  distributed 
Newspaper  ^^  *^^^  middle  of  the  day,  when  the  restaurants  were  crowded, 
From  the  ^'^^^  they  were  numerous  and  large  at  the  time.     Indeed,  in 

Beginning         1865,  and  for  many  years  afterward,  San  Francisco  was  noted 

as  a  city  of  eating  places  and  lodging-houses  rather  than  of 
homes.  There  were  establishments  in  the  middle  of  the  sixties  that  boasted 
serving  as  many  as  four  thousand  dinners  a  day,  and  their  proprietors  were 
pleased  to  assist  in  the  promotion  of  the  digestion  of  their  patrons  by  placing 
on  their  tables  the  freely  distributed  paper  with  its  bits  of  news  and  its 
bright  paragraphs.  This  circulation  was  supplemented  by  distribution  in 
the  theaters  and  other  public  places,  and  it  soon  became  of  sufficient  im- 
portance to  cause  advertisers  to  "sit  up  and  take  notice." 

Before  attempting  to  give  an  idea  of  the  make-up  of  the  Dramatic 
Chronicle  it  will  be  interesting  to  describe  the  place  and  means  of  its 
production,  and  the  financial  resources  of  its  founders.     The  plant  was  not 

large,  nor  was  a  great  sum  of  money  used  in  launching  the 
Chronicle's  enterprise.  The  paper  could  scarcely  boast  a  home  of  its 
YiTst  own,  for  it  was  produced  in  the  corner  of  a  room  occupied 

Home  by  the  job  printing  establishment  of  Harrison  &  Co.,  on  Clay 

street,  east  of  Sansome.  That  was  then  the  heart  of  the 
city,  and  the  neighborhood,  for  a  dozen  years  afterward,  remained  the 
publication  center,  the  Chronicle,  Bulletin  and  Call  maintaining  their  plants 
there  until  1879,  when  the  erstwhile  Dramatic  Chronicle  moved  into  a  build- 
ing on  the  corner  of  Kearny  and  Bush  streets,  constructed  for  its  especial 
use.  In  the  office  erf  Harrison  &  Co.,  the  quarters  of  the  new  aspirant  for 
public  favor  were  very  limited.  Room  was  provided  for  two  type  frames, 
and  alongside  of  them  there  was  a  makeshift  desk,  upon  which  the  printer 
edited  his  copy;  for  editor  and  printer  were  combined  in  the  person  of 
Charles  de  Young,  his  brother  Henry  assuming  the  responsibilities  of  the 
business  management. 

Despite  these  modest  beginnings,  the  duties  of  the  business  manager 
were  by  no  means  light.  Harrison  &  Co.  were  hard-hearted  landlords, 
rnd  took  no  account  of  the  ambitions  of  their  tenants.     The  rent  of  the 

quarters  of  the  Dramatic  Chronicle  and  the  use  of  the  Adams 
^^  press  on  which  the  paper  was  printed  was  $75  per  week, 

Fhfancfal  P^rt  of  which  had  to  be  paid  in  advance.     This  involved  the 

Transaction      necessity  of  hustling  on  the  part  of  the  business  end  of  the 

concern.  A  loan  of  $20  was  secured  from  a  friend  upon 
the  distinct  assurance  that  it  would  be  repaid  at  the  end  of  the  week.  As 
the  circulation  brought  in  no  cash,  the  revenue  of  the  paper  had  to  be  ob- 
tained from  advertisers.  Perhaps  the  first  patrons  may  have  felt  a  little 
dubious  about  receiving  returns  upon  their  investment,  but  such  a  feeling, 
if  it  existed  at  any  time,  must  have  speedily  disappeared  when  they  dis- 
covered the  avidity  with  which  the  little  sheet  was  read  in  restaurants  and 
theaters,  and  the  disappointment  betrayed  when  the  supply  of  Dramatic 
Chronicles  ran  short. 

As  already  noted,  the  Dramatic  Chronicle,  in  addition  to  the  pro- 
grammes of  the  different  theaters  in  which  it  circulated,  contained  a  varied 


66  Journalism  in  California 

assortment  of  original  and  selected  matter,  and  some  news,  both  telegra])hie 
and  local.  There  were  nine  and  a  quarter  columns  of  advertisements  in  the 
first  issue,  the  remaining  six  and  three-quarter  columns,  the  equivalent  of 
about  two  columns  of  solid  matter  of  the  present  daily,  being 
of  "the*^  devoted  to  reading  matter.     The  most  conspicuous  feature  of 

Earliest  the  latter  was  the  dramatic  criticisms  and  the  squibs  directed 

Chronicles  against  the  writers  on  the  contemporary  press.  At  that  time 
the  local  writers  were  well  known  to  the  public  generally,  and 
their  peculiarities  were  so  well  understood  that  none  of  the  pungency  of  the 
items  touching  on  the  foibles  of  the  staffs  of  the  American  Flag,  the  Call, 
the  Alta  and  the  Times  was  lost.  The  more  satirical  the  allusions  the  better 
the  readers  liked  them. 

Restricted  as  were  their  quarters,  the  youthful  publishers  of  the  Dra- 
matic Chronicle  were  able  to  spare  desk  room  for  Mark  Twain,  for  which 
he  paid  in  contributions.  In  those  days  Mark  had  not  acquired  the  fastidi- 
ousness concerning  his  surroundings  for  which  he  became 
Mark  Twain  s  j-^q^^j  when  fortune  smiled  upon  him.  He  was  then  acting 
Contributions  •  n      ,      ^  ,,      /-,         ^     *  ,         oi        -m  • 

to  The  ^s  correspondent  ot  the  Carson  Appeal.       ban  l^rancisco  was 

Chronicle  the  mecca  of  all  Xevadans  in  the  sixties,  and  the  representative 

of  a  prosperous  Nevada  paper  ranked  as  high  as  the  editor 
of  the  publication.  So  far  as  the  desirability  of  the  position  was  concerned, 
there  were  few  newspaper  men  in  what  afterward  became  the  Silver  State 
who  would  not  cheerfully  have  exchanged  with  the  fellow  fortunate  enough 
to  be  able  to  live  in  "Frisco."  At  any  rate,  Mark  never  developed  a  great 
fondness  for  his  sage-brush  surroundings,  and  found  life  more  congenial 
"at  the  bay,"  even  though  he  had  to  put  up  with  a  rude  redwood  desk  in  a 
stuffy  printing  office. 

Although  ]\Iark  was  the  correspondent  of  an  outside  paper,  he  was 
well  known  in  the  city  at  the  time.  His  letters  to  the  Carson  Appeal  were 
widely  read  in  San  Francisco  and  throughout  the  Coast  and  were  greatly 

appreciated  for  their  wit  and  quaint  cynicism.  He  was  far 
^d^^h  from  being  celebrated  in  those  days,  and  that  probably  accounts 

Carson  ^^^"  ^be  fact  that  the  Dramatic  Chronicle  made  no  special  brag 

Appeal  about   his   contributions.     TMany  of  the   satirical   bits   about 

San  Francisco  editors  which  appeared  in  the  columns  of  the 
little  sheet  were  written  by  Twain  to  relieve  his  feelings.  Whether  because 
he  resented  lack  of  appreciation,  which  he  received  in  such  full  measure 
afterward,  or  for  some  other  reason.  Twain  delighted  in  prodding  his  fellow 
workers  on  the  press.  The  late  William  S.  Wood,  who  at  one  time  worked 
Avith  Clemens  on  the  Virginia  Enterprise,  declared  that  his  most  biting 
satires  were  devoid  of  malice,  and  that  their  production  was  uninfluenced 
by  any  other  motive  than  an  irresistil)le  desire  to  "stir  up  the  monkeys." 

Bret  Harte's  contributions  were  due  as  much  to  the  desire  to  get 
something  out  of  his  system  as  to  any  other  cause.     He,  too,  like  Twain, 

found  the  inclination  to  take  a  pot  shot  at  public  characters 
^  hard  to  resist,  and  many  a  bright  squib  whose  anonymity  pre- 

fer vents  its  identification,  could  be  verified  as  his  if  the  first  edi- 

Bohemians        tor  of  The  Chronicle  were  alive  to  bear  testimony.    Harte,  like 

Twain,  frequently  visited  the  young  journalists  at  their 
establishment,  which  became  somewhat  of  a  resort  for  early  bohemians.  In 
subsequent  years,  numerous  poems  and  stories  written  by  Harte, appeared 


MARK  TWAIN 


Up-to-Date   Methods  of  The   Chronicle  67 

in  The  Chronicle.  Some  of  them  bear  no  indication  of  having  been  copy- 
righted, and  it  is  not  impossible  that  there  may  be  fugitive  bits  of  verse 
from  the  pen  of  the  author  of  "The  Heathen  Chinee"  concealed  in  the 
columns  of  the  struggling  little  daily  which  do  not  appear  in  any  of  his 
collected  works.  And  it  is  not  unlikely  that  some  of  the  facetious  criticisms 
of  Twain's  lectures  delivered  in  San  Francisco,  which  appeared  in  The 
Chronicle,  were  written  by  himself.  Anything  he  wrote  would  have  been 
welcomed,  for  he  was  persona  grata  in  the  office  and  understood  the  value  of 
publicity. 

At  this  distance  of  time,  and  since  Harte  and  Clemens  have  achieved 
fame,  a  writer  in  reviewing  the  beginnings  of  The  Chronicle  mav  attach 
undue  importance  to  the  fact  that  they  helped  to  give  its  founders  a  start 

on  the  path  of  popularity ;  but  no  one  who  studies  the  methods 
Bull  ing  ^^  ^i^g  youthful  pulilishers  will  fail  to  recognize  that  the  really 

a  important  factors  in  the  early  upl)uilding  of  the  paper  were 

Circulation        the  business  acumen  displayed  in  securing  the  attention  of  the 

reading  public,  and  the  recognition  of  the  marked  preposses- 
sion of  San  Franciscans  for  the  drama.  Ingenious  managers  have  devised 
many  modes  of  extending  the  circulation  of  their  journals,  but  it  is  doubtful 
whether  any  one  before  or  since  hit  on  the  expedient  of  making  a  paper  do 
double  duty.  In  England  it  was  once  the  custom  to  hire  out  copies  of  the 
London  Times,  but,  in  tliat  and  similar  cases,  the  middle  man  profited.  The 
double  circulation  of  The  Chronicle  was  secured  in  a  different  manner. 
Every  night,  after  the  performances  in  the  theaters,  the  de  Young  boys 
gathered  up  the  crumpled  Dramatic  Chronicles,  smoothed  them  out  as  nicely 
as  possible  and  mailed  them  to  interior  hotels,  thus  obtaining  for  their  sheet 
a  country  circulation  and  considerable  reputation. 

Of  course,  reputation  could  not  have  been  achieved  had  there  not  been 
a  reason  for  its  formation  other  than  the  persistent  circulation  of  sheets  of 
printed  paper.     That  reason  was  very  patent  to  the  average  reader  of  the 

period,  who  had  no  difficulty  in  recognizing  that  the  Dramatic 
A  Dramatic  Chronicle  was  meeting  a  real  want  in  satisfying  the  desire  for 
Who  Hit  news  concerning  the  drama.     It  Avas  promptly  perceived  that 

Hard  the  little  sheet  was  no  mere  play  bill.     It  contained  a  quantity 

of  interesting  intelligence  concerning  persons  in  whom  the 
community  took  a  great  interest.  That  was  real  news  to  a  people  as  fond 
of  the  theater  as  San  Franciscans  were  at  that  time  and  for  a  long  while 
afterward,  and  it  was  only  obtainable  in  the  paper  which  devoted  close 
attention  to  the  fortunes  of  the  artists  who  had  visited  the  city  or  who  con- 
templated a  visit.  But  this  feature  was  overshadowed  in  importance  by  the 
frank  and  discerning  criticisms  of  Tremenhere  Johns,  who  could  be 
facetious,  scathingly  denunciatory  or  enthusiastically  approbative  when  the 
circumstances  seemed  to  call  for  such  a  display. 

There  was  a  tendency  at  first  to  regard  with  amusement  the  presumption 
of  the  editor  of  the  Dramatic  Chronicle  in  permitting  his  little  journal  to 

take  on  the  airs  of  the  bigger  and  longer  established  papers, 
d  ^  ^^^^  their  managers  were  soon  obliged  to  recognize  that  ex- 

Bulletin  pressions  of  opinion   when  well   found  make  an  impression 

Board  which  has  to  be  reckoned  with.     They  saw  that  the  freely 

distributed  Dramatic  Chronicle  was  being  widely  read  and 
that  advertisers  were  appreciative  of  the  fact  and  were  beginning  to  seek 


68  Journalism  in  California 

its  columns.  The  result  of  this  increasing  prosperity  enabled  the  paper  to 
move  into  more  pretentious  quarters  on  Montgomery  street,  near  Clay. 
Here  it  was  housed  in  one  large  room,  a  portion  of  which  was  devoted  to 
the  typesetting,  the  front  part  being  provided  with  a  counter  for  the  trans- 
action of  business.  The  young  journalists  now  owned  their  type  and  furni- 
ture and  were  especially  proud  of  an  imposing  bulletin  board  on  which  the 
name  of  the  paper  appeared  on  a  gilded  background,  challenging  the  atten- 
tion of  all  passers-by  and  arousing  interest  in  the  fortunes  of  the  aspiring 
publishers. 

This  interest  was  being  added  to  in  other  ways.  The  disposition  of 
Critic  Johns  to  tell  the  truth  brought  the  Dramatic  Chronicle  into  collision 
with  Manager  Maguire,  who  was  then  conducting  the  theater  which  bore 

his  name.  Matilda  ITeron,  a  famous  star  of  the  early  sixties, 
With^a^  whose   prosperity   had   the   effect   of   greatly   increasing   the 

Theater  avoirdupois  of  the  tragedienne,  essayed  the  role  of  Camille. 

Manager  Johns  ventured  the  opinion  that  200  pounds  of  adipose  were 

not  calculated  to  create  the  impression  that  she  was  suffering 
from  consumption.  The  actress  became  very  angry  and  demanded  that  the 
Dramatic  Chronicle  should  not  be  circulated  in  the  theater.  The  exclusion 
was  resented,  and  a  bitter  fight  ensued  in  the  course  of  which  the  manage- 
ment was  severely  criticised.  The  Chronicle  being  provoked  to  take  such  a 
course  by  articles  which  Maguire  printed  in  a  little  paper  called  the  Daily 
Critic,  started  by  the  irate  manager  to  defend  himself  against  criticism. 
Among  the  assertions  made  by  The  Chronicle  was  one  to  the  effect  that  the 
manager  freely  admitted  to  the  theater  improper  and  notorious  characters, 
and  that  his  negligence  in  this  regard  was  resented  by  the  public.  The 
charge  caused  Maguire  to  commence  an  action  for  criminal  libel,  which  was 
never  prosecuted  because  the  paper  was  fully  prepared  to  substantiate  its 
allegation. 

When  the  news  of  the  assassination  of  Lincoln  was  received  on  the 
morning  of  April  15,  1865,  the  Dramatic  Chronicle  was  just  three  months 
old  and  did  not  boast  a  telegraphic  news  service.     But  its  editor  was 

resourceful.  The  morning  papers  had  all  been  issued  without 
i}^^^     f  a  word  concerning  the  tragedy.     At  8  o'clock  the  Western 

Lincoln's  TTnion  Telegraph  Company  posted  a  bulletin  with  some  de- 

Assassination    tails.     The  Dramatic  Chronicle  a  few  minutes  afterward  was 

on  the  street  with  an  extra,  which  was  eagerly  bought.  The 
company  received  more  news  and  posted  it,  and  the  enterprising  little 
Chronicle  spread  it  broadcast  by  means  of  a  second  extra.  The  people  were 
soon  in  a  frenzy  of  excitement  and  began  raiding  the  offices  of  the  news- 
])apers  of  known  secession  proclivities.  The  Democratic  Press,  published 
by  Moss  &  Co.,  and  edited  by  Phil  Poach,  had  all  its  type  and  material 
thrown  into  the  street.  The  office  of  the  Occident,  a  Ifethodist  religious 
weekly,  edited  by  Pev.  Dr.  Fitzgerald,  was  treated  in  like  manner,  as  was 
also  Marriott's  paper,  the  News  Letter.  The  police  were  called  out,  but 
displayed  no  particular  desire  to  interfere  with  the  mob,  the  successive 
spasms  of  which  were  duly  recorded  in  Chronicle  extras,  the  energetic  little 
aspirant  for  public  favor  having  the  whole  field  to  itself,  its  bigger  rivals 
not  having  realized  that  something  had  happened.  M.  H.  de  Young  acted 
as  reporter.  He  followed  the  mob.  and  as  quickly  as  he  could  secure  details 
he  wrote  them  up  and  ran  to  the  office,  where  his  brother  Charles  sqt  up  the 


BRET  HARTE 


Up-to-Date  Methods  of  The  Chronicle 


69 


Early- 
Efforts 
at 
Illustration 


type.     Extras  were  put  on  the  street  after  each  occurrence,  all  of  which  were 
snapped  up  by  an  intensely  excited  people  eager  for  the  latest  news. 

An  interesting  fact  connected  witli  the  publication  of  the  news  of  the 
assassination  of  Lincoln  is  the  recognition  by  its  young  editor  of  the  de- 
sirability of  illustration.  On  tlie  16th  of  April  a  portrait  of  the  assassin 
Booth  was  printed.  It  was  from  a  wood  cut,  which  the  reader 
was  informed  had  been  produced  in  two  hours.  It  was  a  good 
likeness  of  the  actor,  and  was  significantly  adorned  with  a 
noose.  The  Chronicle  was  so  well  satisfied  with  its  perform- 
ance it  repeated  it  on  the  day  after.  A  few  days  afterward 
the  scene  of  the  assassination  was  illustrated  in  The  Chronicle.  Like  the 
portrait,  it  was  from  a  wood  engraving,  the  drawing  for  which  was  by 
Tojetti,  a  well-known  San  Francisco  artist.  These  pictures  were  not  the 
first  to  appear  in  The  Chronicle.  On  February  2,  1865,  a  portrait  of 
Edward  Everett  was  printed.  It  has  been  claimed  for  these  publications 
and  some  which  appeared  a  short  time  afterward  that  they  are  the  earliest 
indications  in  an  American  paper  of  the  disposition  to  make  illustrations  a 
feature  of  daily  journalism. 


CHAPTER  IX 

MAXY  IXXOVATIOXS  BY  THE  BROTHERS,  CHARLES  AXD 

M.  H.  de  YOUXG. 

The  Chronicle  Begins  to  Make  Investigations — Early  Contributors  to  the  Sunday 
Edition — Charles  Warren  Stoddard,  Prentice  Mulford  and  Anna  Cora  Mowatt 
Ritchie — The  Chronicle 's  First  London  Correspondent — The  Prefix  Dramatic 
Dropped — The  Daily  Morning  Chronicle — The  Earthquake  of  1868 — An  Extra 
Issued  While  the  Earth  Was  Trembling— The  Enterprise  of  the  Bulletin — 
Career  of  the  Alta  California — Policies  of  the  Bulletin  and  Call — The  Attitude 
of  the  San  Francisco  Press  Toward  the  Kailroad — Fear  of  Goat  Island  Becom- 
ing a  Rival  City — When  the  Southern  Pacific  Was  "The  Railroad'' — Little 
Distrust  of  the  Future — The  Press  Confident  That  the  Railroad  Would  Promote 
Prosperity — The  Mania  for  Mining  Stock  Speculation — The  Rush  to  the  White 
Pine  Mines — A   Hopeful   Press   on  the   Eve   of   Hard   Times. 


HE  Dramatic  Chronicle,  though  bright  and  breezy,  did 
not  accomplish  an  immediate  revolution  in  journalistic 
methods  in  San  Francisco.  It  is  just  possible  that  its 
repeated  increases  in  length  and  width  may  have  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  the  established  papers,  but  they 
showed  no  signs  of  welcoming  or  discouraging  the 
stranger.  They  may  have  been  annoyed  at  its  propen- 
sity to  do  unexpected  things,  as  in  the  case  of  the  extras 
announcing  the  news  of  the  assassination  of  President  Lincoln,  but  they 
still  looked  upon  it  as  a  play  bill  and  entitled  to  no  special  consideration 
as  such.  It  was  not  until  the  ambitious  journalists  began  to  engage  in  the 
work  of  investigating  the  affairs  of  institutions  that  had  thitherto  enjoyed 
immunity  from  criticism,  that  its  mature  rivals  began  to  notice  its  existence 
by  intimating  that  it  was  a  sensational  sheet  and  therefore  unworthy  atten- 
tion. Somehow  or  other,  although  the  Call  and  the  Bulletin  vehemently 
asserted  that  no  one  believed  what  appeared  in  the  columns  of  The  Chronicle, 
its  assertions  usually  created  a  stir,  because  they  were  backed  up  by  details 
which  stam])ed  them  as  something  different  from  the  not  infrequent  assaults 
on  municipal  shortcomings  in  the  past,  which,  as  a  rule,  Avere  unaccompanied 
by  specifications. 

Perhaps  the  fact  that  the  Dramatic  Chronicle's  advertising  patronage 
was  increasing  rapidly  gave  the  older  papers  more  concern  than  its  innova- 
tions. During  the  first  three  months  of  its  existence  advertisements  in- 
creased from  nine  and  a  quarter  to  fifteen  and  a  half  columns.  As  the 
paper  only  contained  twenty  columns  of  matter,  the  proportion  of  reading 

70 


CHARLES  WARREN  STODDARD 


Innovations  and  Investigations  71 

was  very  small,  but  the  brightness  of  the  squibs,  and  the  fact  that  a  fair 
share  of  the  advertising  was  news  of  a  sort  looked  for  by  the  community, 
caused  the  popularity  of  the  Dramatic  Chronicle  to  continue  to  grow. 
There  is  evidence  that  the  proprietors  were  well  satisfied  with 
Patro^nage^  ^^^^  success  they  were  achieving,  for  on  the  first  anniversary 
of  The  of  the  publication,  January  16,  1806,  there  was  a  poem  of 

Chronicle  felicitation    headed   "Our   Birthday,"    and    a   cartoon,    "The 

Infant  Hercules,"  which  depicted  The  Chronicle  in  the  act 
of  destroying  its  envious  competitors,  who  were  pictured  as  snakes.  A  few 
days  later,  the  first  signed  contribution  of  Charles  Warren  Stoddard  ap- 
peared. It  was  a  poem  entitled  "To  an  Uncrowned  Poet,"  and  marked  the 
beginning  of  a  connection  which  endured  for  many  years. 

At  frequent  intervals  during  1S68  the  Dramatic  Chronicle  contained 
accounts  of  incidents  in  which  Bret  Harte  figured;  there  was  also  a  manifest 
disposition  to  boost  Mark  Twain,  and  the  manner  of  the  boosting  is  so  sug- 
gestive of  the  humorist's  peculiar  style  that  one  might  readily 

n^!!f5-u,f5„L  i^e  pardoned  for  suspecting  that  he  knew  something  of  the 
Contributors  .j       ,  .  .         t.      •   i  ^   •    ,    i  Tin    -.o/^r.    "        i  •  i 

of  The  authorship.     An  editorial  printed  on  July  3,  186S,  m  which 

Chronicle  remarks  made  in  a  lecture  delivered  by  him  on  the  previous 

evening  were  liberally  quoted  and  highly  complimented,  must 
have  been  appreciated  at  a  time  Avhen  Mark  was  not  so  much  of  a  stage 
lion  as  he  later  became.  A  few  days  later,  on  the  11th  of  July,  1868,  the 
Dramatic  Chronicle  introduced  to  its  readers  Mrs.  Anna  Cora  Mowatt 
Eitchie,  in  a  London  letter,  and  proudly  announced  that  she  would  there- 
after act  as  its  exclusive  correspondent  at  the  British  metropolis.  The  letter 
was  noteworthy  as  foreshadowing  the  paper's  intention  to  add  to  its  literary 
attractions,  and  because  it  was  a  month  in  transit.  A  couple  of  weeks  later 
a  sketch  entitled  "The  Eagle  Bird,"  by  Prentice  Mulford,  marked  that 
writer's  advent  in  San  Francisco  journalism.  He  continued  to  write  for 
The  Chronicle  almost  to  the  day  of  his  tragic  death,  caused  by  the  capsizing 
of  a  sloop  yacht  which  he  was  sailing  on  the  Hudson  river. 

On  the  1st  of  September,  1868,  the  Dramatic  Chronicle  appeared  as 
"The  Daily  Morning  Chronicle."  In  dropping  the  prefix  "Dramatic," 
which  it  had  borne  for  over  three  years  and  a  half,  the  paper  lost  none  of  its 
brightness.  It  was  now  a  four-page  sheet  with  seven  columns 
p^®  to  the  page.     It  had  literally  grown  by  inches,  its  original 

"Dramatic"  length  of  column  having  increased  from  131/2  to  221/2  inches, 
Dropped  and  it  contained  about  three  times  as  much  of  all  varieties  of 

matter  as  it  did  when  it  first  made  its  bow  to  the  public.  On 
its  first  page  it  presented  an  article,  "An  Evening  With  the  Bruisers," 
the  sub-title  of  which,  "A  School  for  Crime  and  Some  of  the  Scholars," 
indicated  the  attitude  of  the  paper  toward  the  then  popular  exhibitions  of 
"boxing."  The  first  number  of  the  morning  edition  was  particularly  strong 
in  editorial,  two  and  three-quarter  columns  being  devoted  to  comment.  All 
the  features  of  a  full-fledged  daily  were  introduced,  including  commercial 
and  marine  news.  The  contents  of  the  twenty-eight  columns  embraced: 
Advertisements,  15  columns;  local  news,  814  columns;  telegraphic  and  mail 
news,  2  columns,  and  editorial,  2^/4  columns. 

On  the  following  day  a  poem  by  Bret  Harte,  entitled  "The  Hero  of 
Sugar  Pine,"  was  published.  As  already  stated,  there  is  no  indication  that 
it  was  specially  written  for  The  Chronicle,  and  the  same  may  be  said  of 


72  Journalism  in  California 

''The  Stage  Driver's  Story,"  '"The  Executive  Committee  of  the  Colored 
Population/'  "The  Babes  in  the  Woods"  and  "For  the  King/'  which  ap- 
peared at  intervals  between  1868  and  1874.     The  fact  that  they  were  not 

copyrighted,  and  that  no  special  claim  was  made  for  them  is 
and  iiot  surprising,  for  the  author  had  not  yet  found  himself.   The 

Joaquin  same  comment  applies  to  some  short  poems  by  Joaquin  Miller, 

Miller  who,  when  they  appeared,  was  glad  to  break  into  print  on 

terms  whieli  did  not  involve  the  recognition  of  the  counting- 
room.  Later,  Joaquin  became  a  regular  contributor  of  The  Chronicle  to 
the  great  grief  of  the  editors,  who  were  called  upon  to  decipher  his  wretched 
chirography,  which  was  also  the  despair  of  the  printers,  and  was  received 
by  them  only  under  protest.  Occasionally,  the  poet's  copy  was  so  bad  it 
had  to  be  relegated  to  the  waste  basket.  That  was  the  case  with  at  least 
two  letters  of  a  series  written  from  Europe,  one  of  them,  as  nearly  as  could 
be  ascertaiucd,  dealing  with  the  origin  of  the  search  of  Jason  for  the  Golden 
Fleece,  which  he  argued  was  not  a  myth,  but  a  real  occurrence. 

On  the  21st  of  October,  1868,  the  Daily  Morning  Chronicle  was 
afforded  an  opportunity  to  exhibit  its  enterprise  under  trying  conditions. 
The  bay  region  on  that  date  was  visited  by  a  severe  earthquake  shock,  which 

did  considerable  damage  to  buildings  constructed  in  an  un- 
^sued  ^'^^  substantial  manner.     The  first  shock  occurred  at  7 :54  A.  M., 

TjndcT  ^ritl  ■"'^s  followed  at  10  :35  and  11 :20  by  less  severe  shocks. 

Difficulties         x\.t  1 :30   P.  ]\I.,   The  Chronicle   issued  an  extra  containing 

nearly  six  columns  of  fine  print,  consisting  of  brief  paragraphs 
devoted  to  describing  the  extent  of  the  damage,  and  noting  the  few  casual- 
ties which  accompanied  the  seismic  disturbance.  It  was  a  fine  piece  of  re- 
porting, and  a  source  of  special  wonderment  to  later  editors,  who  were  at 
loss  to  imderstand  how  the  feat  was  accomplished  with  the  comparatively 
small  force  at  the  disposal  of  the  de  Young  boys.  The  explanation  was 
simple.  It  was  a  case  of  rapid  organization.  Everyone  connected  with  the 
establishment  Avas  drafted  into  the  service.  Carriers,  printers,  clerks  and 
pressmen  each  contributed  his  mite  of  observation  in  the  district  especially 
assigned  to  him. 

But  the  journalistic  enterprise  displayed  in  getting  the  facts  before  the 
public  so  promptly  is  no  more  noteworthy  than  the  sensible  comment  in  the 
editorial  columns  on  the  succeeding  day,  which  Avas  designed  to  be  reassuring 

and  certainly  had  that  effect.  The  editor  remarked :  "The 
Sh  v"^*  severest  shock  San  Francisco  has  ever  experienced,  or  is  likely 

After  to  experience,  has  come  and  gone,  resulting  in  less  damage 

All  to  life  and  property  than  attended  the  great  earthquake  in 

London  in  John  Wesley's  time."  This  sounds  like  making 
the  best  of  a  situation,  as  floes  also  the  assertion,  made  a  day  or  two  later, 
that  "the  crowds  that  filled  our  streets  on  Tuesday  did  not  wear  an  aspect 
of  sadness  or  depression.  In  fact,  a  stranger  ignorant  of  the  cause  of  the 
excitement,  would  think  they  were  enjoying  some  great  holiday."  But 
there  was  no  possibility  of  mistaking  the  significance  of  the  statement  made 
in  the  real  estate  records  on  the  followins:  Sunday  morning  in  which  the 
writer  said :  "The  recent  severe  earthquake  shock  has  caused  a  temporary 
dullness,  but  no  depression  of  values ;"  nor  would  it  be  possible  to  interpret 
the  action  of  The  Chronicle  in  getting  out  an  illustrated  earthquake  edition 
as  an  exhibition  of  lack  of  confidence,  for  it  was  filled  with  matter  calculated 


Innovations  and   Investigations  73 

to  convince  tlie  reader  that  while  earthquakes  may  be  put  in  the  category  of 
undesirable  manifestations,  on  the  Avhole  they  do  not  remotely  approach  the 
destructiveness  of  cyclones,  floods  and.  other  phenomena  unknown  to  San 
Francisco. 

With  eight  years  and  more  of  a  start,  the  Bulletin,  which  was  still 
the  paper  printing  the  greatest  quantity  and  variety  of  matter  in  1S66,  was 
in  a  fair  way  of  being  ousted  from  its  premier  position  when  The  Chronicle 
dropped  the  prefix  "Dramatic."  It  retained  its  early  four- 
EnterTDrise  V''^S^  form,  and  the  eight  columns  to  the  page  inaugurated 
of  the  some  years  earlier.     The  average  of  a  period  extending  over 

Bulletin  several   years    after   the    above    date    shows    about   nineteen 

columns  of  advertisements  daily,  to  thirteen  of  varied  matter, 
in  which  telegraphic  news  was  not  conspicuous.  Several  issues  of  186G-67 
and.  1868  exhibit  these  proportions.  Telegraphic  news,  1  column ;  mail 
correspondence,  2  columns;  reprint,  3  columns;  editorials,  2  columns; 
markets,  financial  and  commercial  news,  l^/g  columns;  marine  news,  i/g 
of  a  column ;  local  or  city  news,  21/4  columns,  a  large  proportion  of  the  latter 
being  bald  accounts  of  the  doings  of  municipal  officials  and  very  brief 
court  notes.  In  1870  telegraphic  news  had  increased  to  about  three  columns 
daily,  but  some  of  it  lacked  up-to-datedness,  being  a  day  old.  A  little 
earlier  than  this  date  the  Bulletin  departed  from  a  long  maintained  practice 
of  grouping  its  news  under  a  general  heading  in  paragraphs  without  heads, 
and  ventured  on  the  bold  experiment  of  making  it  easier  for  the  reader  to 
find  what  he  was  interested  in  by  putting  heads  on  some  of  its  news  items, 
and,  in  the  same  year,  it  printed  a  map  of  the  Franco-Prussian  war  zone, 
one  of  its  few  ventures  in  the  field  of  illustration. 

The  Alta,  established  in  1819,  still  retained,  its  prestige  at  the  close 
of  the  sixty  decade.     In  1869  it  absorbed  the  Times  and  was  regarded  by 
the  community  as  the  representative  of  the  substantial  elements.     Its  course 
was  conservative,  even  in  the  matter  of  gathering  and.  pre- 
of 'The  senting  the  news.     Its  subscription  price  was  higher  than 

Alta  f'^^t  of  any  other  city  paper,  and  it  had  a  monopoly  of  the 

California  shipping  and  auction  advertising,  and  of  the  general  adver- 
tisements of  the  jobbing  trade.  It  was  conceded  to  be  the 
special  representative  of  the  commercial  element,  and  scarcely  considered 
as  a  rival  the  Call,  which  a  few  years  earlier  had  been  launched  as  a 
co-operative  enterprise  by  a  few  printers.  The  Call  started  out  with  the 
purpose  of  obtaining  subscriptions  by  offering  its  paper  at  the  temptingly 
low  rate  for  the  period  of  121/0  cents  a  week,  excluding  Sundays,  on  which 
day  it  was  not  issued.  Its  success  was  only  moderate  and  its  circulation 
probably  did  not  exceed  ten  or  twelve  thousand  daily  at  any  time  during 
the  sixties.  Its  policy  was  in  marked  contrast  to  that  of  the  Bulletin,  which 
for  many  years  was  extremely  aggressive  in  its  opposition  to  expenditures 
for  municipal  purposes. 

The  joint  ownership  of  the  Bulletin  and  Call  by  the  same  proprietors 
was  the  source  of  much  ill-natured  comment  directed  chiefly  against  the 
latter.  The  Bulletin  was  managed  by  George  K.  Fitch,  and  the  Call  by 
Loring  Pickering  and  James  A.  Simonton,  the  latter,  up  to  the  time  of 
his  death,  being  the  representative  of  the  Xew  York  Associated  Press  before 
the  formation  of  the  present  association,  which  was  accomplished  by  a  mer- 
ger process.  It  was  generally  understood  that  the  distinctly  different  policies 


74  Journalism  in  California 

pursued  by  the  two  journals  was  the  result  of  an  understanding  which  had 
for  its  object  the  pleasing  of  all  sorts  of  readers.     Fitch,  who  was  very 
familiar  with  the  conduct  of  municipal  affairs  and  took  an 
and  Call  active  interest  in  local  politics,  was  to  continue  the  course 

Under  One  which  James  King  of  William  and  the  march  of  events  seemed 
Ownership  to  have  marked  out  for  the  Bulletin,  while  Pickering  elected 
to  secure  the  patronage  of  a  cosmopolitan  community  in 
which  the  disposition  to  find  lines  of  cleavage  early  manifested  itself.  The 
mode  adopted  to  accomplish  this  object  was  adherence  to  innocuousness, 
and  the  editor  of  the  Call  developed  a  facility  of  avoi'dance  which  was 
masterly,  his  journal  on  most  subjects  carefully  avoiding  the  expression  of  a 
positive  opinion. 

The  Bulletin  was  the  very  antithesis  of  the  Call.  It  expressed  itself 
with  boldness  and  vigor  upon  most  topics  and  its  editorials  were  well 
written.  There  is  no  doubt  that  between  1856  and  1870  it  was  the  most 
important  factor  in  promoting  the  fortunes  of  the  People's 
Mouthpiece  P'^^^J'  ^^^^  ^^  "^^'^^  ^^'^^^  understood  in  political  circles  and  by 
of  the  ^'iG  informed  in  the  community  that  it  had  a  voice  in  the 

People's  Party  selection  of  candidates  for  municipal  offices,  a  duty  assumed 
by  a  junta  after  the  frightful  miscarriage  of  the  more  demo- 
cratic primary  system  in  the  years  prior  to  the  Vigilante  uprising.  This 
usurpation  came  in  for  a  great  deal  of  criticism  from  rival  journals  as  the 
years  wore  on,  and  the  memory  of  the  saturnalia  of  extravagance  and 
corruption  preceding  1856  faded  from  the  public  mind,  but  it  Avas  power- 
less to  shake  the  popular  conviction  resulting  from  Fitch's  teachings,  that 
the  only  safe  plan  of  dealing  with  municipal  officials  is  strictly  to  limit 
taxation.  He  had  succeeded  in  persuading  citizens  that  the  consolidation 
act  framed  by  Horace  TIawcs,  with  its  numberless  restrictions,  was  an  ideal 
fundamental  law,  and  that  the  best  municipal  government  W'as  that  sort 
which  reduced  public  expenditures  to  a  minimum. 

There  were  few  who  openly  dissented  from  this  opinion  until  the  close 
of  the  sixties,  when  dissatisfaction  began  to  be  expressed  over  the  failure 
of  the  city  to  provide  public  buildings  commensurate  with  its  growing  im- 
portance.    There  was   also   a  growing   demand  for  a   park 
Imoos  d  which  would  provide  a  desirable  resort  for  the  people  who 

Restrictions  were  obliged  to  patronize  a  private  pleasure  ground  when 
they  wished  to  take  an  outing.  The  Chronicle  was  one  of 
the  earliest  advocates  of  a  more  liberal  course  and  insisted 
that  some  means  would  have  to  he  adopted  to  break  through  the  self-imposed 
restrictions  if  San  Francisco  w^as  to  be  put  in  readiness  for  the  influx  of 
immigrants  which  it  was  expected  would  follow  the  opening  of  the  transcon- 
tinental railroad.  This  event  had  long  been  a  subject  of  comment  in  the 
editorial  columns  of  the  city  press,  and,  while  there  was  much  divergent 
opinion  respecting  the  methods  adopted  by  the  beneficiaries  of  the  liberality 
of  municipalities,  counties,  states  and  the  Nation,  there  was  none  respecting 
the  enormous  advantages  that  were  to  accrue  to  San  Francisco  on  the  com- 
pletion of  the  overland  highway.  The  railroad  was  to  effect  a  complete 
metamorphosis.  The  earlier  argument  so  diligently  urged,  that  it  was  a 
military  necessity,  ceased  to  be  employed  when  it  was  seen  that  the  civil 
conflict  must  inevitably  terminate  long  before  the  road  could  be  completed, 
and  critics  could  be  outspoken  in  their  condemnation  of  methods  which 
smacked  of  monopoly  w'ithout  having  disloyalty  imputed  to  them.         •, 


Innovations  and  Investigations  75 

Perhaps  the  earliest  cause  for  general  distrust  was  that  excited  by  the 
imconcealed  desire  of  the  constructors  of  the  Central  Pacific  to  head  off  all 
rivalry.     The  city  and  county  of  San  Francisco  had  joined  with  San  Mateo 
and  Santa  Clara  counties  in  extending  aid  to  a  road  connecting 
^^^^^  the  city  and  San  Jose,  which  was  begun  in  1860  and  corn- 

Railroad  pleted    in    186-i.     The   city    had    also    extended    aid   to   the 

Monopoly  Western  Pacific  to  the  amount  of  $-iOO,000.     The  two  sub- 

sidies aggregated  $600,000,  which  the  railroad  managers  re- 
ceived in  the  form  of  bonds,  giving  an  equal  amount  of  stock  in  exchange. 
The  city  authorities  were  persuaded  to  surrender  the  stock,  the  consideration 
being  tlie  return  of  $"200,000  of  the  bonds,  reducing  the  city's  railroad  in- 
debtedness to  $400,000.  This  action  was  criticised  by  a  part  of  the 
press  and  defended  by  another  section.  In  1865  the  Southern  Pacific  was 
incorporated,  and  it  soon  became  apparent  that  the  chief  object  of  the 
formation  of  the  new  corporation  was  to  prevent  the  entrance  of  the  Atlantic 
and  Pacific,  a  company  which  proposed  to  construct  a  railroad  as  nearly 
as  practicable  along  ijj^  line  of  the  thirty-fifth  parallel  of  latitude,  which 
was  to  be  aided  by  a  frDeral  land  subsidy. 

It  would  be  hard  to  determine  the  real  sentiment  of  the  community 
toward  the  Southern  Pacific  at  this  time.     The  incorporators  were  the  same 
men  as  those  who  projected  and  were  in  the  w^ay  of  successfully  carrying 
out  the  Central  Pacific  scheme.     They  were  Sacramentans, 
General  ^^^^^  ^^lat  fact  seemed  to  excite  no  jealousy,  perhaps  because 

Railroad  it  was  plainly  seen  that  while  the  overland  railroad  nominally 

Connection  had  its  beginning  at  that  city  its  true  terminus  on  the  Pacific 
would  be  San  Francisco,  tlndoubtedly,  the  boldness  which 
characterized  the  operations  of  Huntington,  Stanford,  Crocker  and  Hopkins 
inspired  confidence  in  the  success  of  their  undertakings,  and  there  was  a 
strong  desire  prevalent  for  railroad  connection  with  the  southern  part  of  the 
State,  with  which  communication  was  slow  and  infrequent  at  the  time.  It 
is  not  improbable  that  in  addition  to  these  motives  the  inertia  produced  by 
the  hostility  to  taxation  for  improvements  played  its  part  and  made  the  com- 
munity indifferent  to  the  w^arnings  of  those  who  saw  a  menace  to  the  future 
prosperity  of  the  State  in  the  attempt  to  shut  off  rivalry.  Whatever  the 
cause,  the  attitude  of  the  State  toward  the  project  w^as  sufficiently  acquiescent 
to  permit  Congress  to  adopt  a  course  which  excluded  the  Atlantic  and 
Pacific  from  entrance  to  the  State  for  many  years. 

Somewhat  different  was  the  course  adopted  when  in  1869  an  attempt 
was  made  to  persuade  San  Francisco  that  it  would  be  to  its  interest  to  permit 
the  Central  Pacific  to  acquire  Goat  island  for  terminal  purposes.     Papers 
which  had  not  displayed  any  anxiety  regarding  the  possible 
^^^^  evil  effects  of  shutting  out  a  rival  transcontinental  railroad 

Goat  Island      became  bitterly  antagonistic  to  the  proposal,  and  assailed  it 
Rivalry  on  various  grounds.     The  Bulletin  seemed  to  be  particularly 

apprehensive  that  the  granting  of  the  300  acres,  which  was 
about  the  area  of  the  island,  would  result  in  the  creation  of  a  rival  city  in 
the  bay,  which  would  seriously  injure  the  business  of  the  port  of  San  Fran- 
cisco. California's  representatives  in  Congress  would  cheerfully  have 
•assisted  in  carrying  through  the  project,  but  the  uproar  created  deterred 
them  from  acting,  and  Goat  island  still  remains  an  asset  of  the  Federal 
Government,  which  may  at  some  future  day  be  put  to  a  more  beneficial 
use  than  the  limited  one  it  now  serves. 


76  Journalism  in  California 

Looking  backward,  and  reviewing  some  of  the  circumstance?  attending 
the  construction  of  the  first  transcontinental  railroad,  it  does  not  seem  sur- 
prising that  its  projectors  met  with  a  great  deal  of  hostility.     In  the  early 

stages  of  the  enterprise  the  utmost  liberality  was  displayed 
Corrupt  ^j   ^i^g   people,   and   when   the   enthusiasm   flagged   it   was 

Eailroad  stimulated  by  devices  that  transcended  ordinary  criminality. 

Managers  Bribery  was  freely  employed  to  accomplish  purposes  conceived 

in  the  fertile  brains  of  the  builders.  They  were  uuAvearied 
in  their  pursuit  of  favorable  legislation,  and  shrunk  from  no  measure  which 
they  deemed  necessary  to  protect  their  interests.  Although  beneficiaries 
on  a  huge  scale,  they  repaid  those  who  conferred  the  benefits  by  charging 
excessive  rates  for  the  services  performed  by  them  and  by  practicing  all 
sorts  of  discrimination  to  advance  their  own  personal  fortunes  and  those  of 
chosen' friends.  It  would  have  been  extraordinary,  indeed,  if  this  condition 
of  affairs  had  not  influenced  the  journalism  of  the  time.  And  it  did  to  a 
degree  hardly  conceivable  by  the  newspaper  reader  of  today,  who  still  hears 
the  echoes  of  the  conflict  which  began  wliile  the  Civil  War  was  raging,  and 
which  some  politicians  would  like  to  see  continued  indefinitely,  although  the 
cause  for  hostility  has  long  since  disappeared. 

It  is  one  of  the  anomalies  of  this  long  continued  discussion  that  the 
State,  when  there  were  the  best  of  reasons  for  hostility  to  the  railroad  which 
practically  had  a  monopoly  of  transportation,  and  sought  to  perpetuate  it, 

refused  to  use  the  power  it  had  to  compel  fair  treatment; 
F    n  isco  while  now,  that  the  machinery  for  effective  regulation  exists. 

Press  and         ^^^^  is  persistently  exercised,  there  should  be  an  affectation 
the  Railroad     of  fear  of  the  machinations  of  the  corporation.     The  railroad 

has  been  rendered  powerless  for  harm  and  it  is  amazing  that 
it  should  still  be  regarded  with  fear.  It  shows  a  lack  of  intelligent  appre- 
ciation of  the  situation.  It  is  not  difficult  to  follow  the  curious  variations 
in  the  attitude  of  the  San  Francisco  press  toward  what  for  a  long  time 
was  called  "the  railroad,"  an  expression  singularly  inappropriate  at  the 
present  day,  when  three  rival  transcontinental  roads  are  bidding  for  favor, 
but  which  fittingly  indicated  the  Southern  Pacific  corporation  when  it 
absolutely  controlled  the  transportation  facilities  of  California,  and  made 
freight  and  fare  rates  tell  in  an  unmistakable  fashion  the  story  of  a  grinding 
luonopoly.  As  this  narration  progi'esses,  it  will  be  seen  which  papers  fought 
the  railroad  when  the  people  needed  a  defender,  and  those  who  rushed  to 
the  aid  of  the  corporation  will  be  pointed  out. 

The  last  spike  of  the  first  transcontinental  road,  built  assumedly  as  a 
war  measure,  was  driven  May  10,  1869.  As  heretofore  remarked,  the  com- 
pletion of  the  road  was  looked  forward  to  hopefully  by  the  community,  and 

this  hopefulness  found  frequent  expression  in  the  press,  some- 
Looking  times  in  a  very  exuberant  fashion.  There  apparently  was 
With  little  distrust  of  the  future,  although  there  were  rumblings  of 
Hope  the  trouble  which  culminated  in  the   sand-lot   disturbances 

a  few  years  later.  The  people  of  San  Francisco  had  received 
a  foretaste  of  the  evils  of  mining  stock  speculation,  but,  as  is  often  the  case, 
they  were  more  inclined  to  blame  something  else  than  the  true  cause  for  the 
slackness  of  business,  which  it  was  expected  would  be  ended  with  the  advent 
of  the  railroad.  The  town  still  believed  that  mining  was  the  backbone  of 
San  Francisco's  prosperity,  and  could  not  be  persuaded  that  there  was  a  vast 


Innovations  and  Investigations 


77 


Mining 

Stock 

Speculation 


difference  between  the  legitimate  practice  of  that  industry  and  dabbling  in 
stocks  which  had  become  very  general  toward  the  close  of  the  sixty  decade, 
owing  to  the  discovery  of  rich  ores  on  the  Comstock.  The  lode  was  first 
found  in  1853,  but  the  extent  of  its  richness  was  not  disclosed  until  1859, 
when  the  argentiferous  character  of  its  ores  was  made  known. 

Although  reports  intimated  that  the  ores  were  fabuh)usly  rich,  the 
Comstocks  did  not  possess  the  attractiveness  of  the  placers,  but  they  drew  to 
Nevada  a  comparatively  large  number  of  prospectors,  who  found  a  country 
abounding  in  minerals.  Up  to  1859  brokers  were  not  very 
prominent  in  San  Francisco.  The  few  who  called  them- 
selves by  that  name  dealt  chiefly  in  local  securities,  and 
when  the  legal  tender  money  of  the  United  States  began  to 
depreciate  they  included  the  sale  of  currency  in  their  opera- 
tions. The  San  Francisco  Stock  and  Exchange  Board  was  formed  in  1862, 
with  forty  members,  and  the  number  suggested  a  nickname  which  was  freely 
applied,  indicating  the  degree  of  esteem  in  which  tlie  profession  was  held. 
On  April  15,  1863,  a  second  board,  known  as  the  San  Francisco  Board  of 
Brokers,  was  formed,  and  three  months  later  still  anotlier  organization, 
named  the  Pacific,  had  come  into  existence.  Altogether,  in  the  short  space 
of  a  year,  the  professional  dealers  in  mining  stocks  had  increased  to  160, 
the  first-formed  board,  yclept  "The  Forty  Thieves,"  having  doubled  its 
membership.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  accompany  this  recital  of  the  rapid 
expansion  of  the  cult  with  the  statement  that  the  community  was  infected 
witli  tlie  fever  of  speculation. 

Perhaps  the  press  was  responsible  for  the  attitude  of  aloofness  which 
the  community  assumed  toward  mining  stock  speculation  in  its  early  stages. 
The  Bulletin  refused  to  recognize  the  operations  of  the  first-formed  board 
as  legitimate  objects  of  newspaper  notice,  and  declined  to 
publish  the  quotations  of  stocks  for  quite  six  months  after  the 
opening  of  the  exchange,  and  then  did  so  seemingly  under 
]u-otest,  furnisliing  no  further  information  than  that  contained 
in  the  printed  lists  of  bids  and  sales.  The  Call,  likewise, 
saw  no  reason  for  getting  excited  about  a  matter  which  was  engaging  the 
attention  of  the  whole  community,  and  was  nearly  as  cautious  as  its 
evening  contemporary.  The  x41ta  was  more  liberal,  but  none  of  the  dailies, 
until  some  years  afterward,  countenanced  the  belief  that  found  almost 
general  acceptance  that  a  lively  stock  market  was  a  good  thing  for  business. 
It  is  interesting,  nearly  a  half  century  after  they  were  written,  to  read 
articles  in  which  the  writers  solemnly  argued  that  a  community  cannot  get 
rich  by  gambling,  and  tliat  marking  up  the  price  of  stocks  did  not  increase 
their  value  any  more  than  "changing  tlie  price  tag  on  a  coat  would  make  it 
a  better  or  more  valuable  garment." 


Early 
Hostility 
to 
Speculation 


CHAPTER   X 


STOCK    GAMBLING    AND    OTHER    TROUBLES 
IN    THE    SEVENTIES. 

Conditions  Preceding  tlie  Adoption  of  the  Constitntion  of  1879 — Henry  George's 
Connection  With  The  Chronicle — General  Protest  Against  Land  Monopoly — 
Disturbing  Eesults  of  the  Spanish  and  Mexican  Land  Grant  System — The 
Revivifying  Influence  of  the  Finding  of  Large  Bodies  of  Ore  in  Nevada — The 
Big  Bonanza  Discovery  and  Its  Effects — The  Rage  for  Gambling  in  Mining 
Stocks — Stock  Gambling  an  Excuse  for  All  Delinquencies — The  Big  Deals  Put 
Over — Men  Who  Yearned  for  Misinformation — The  Failure  of  the  Bank  of 
California  and  the  Death  of  Ralston — Manufacturing  Enterprises  That  Did  Not 
Succeed — Early  Aspirations  for  a  ' '  City  Beautiful ' '  on  the  Bay  of  San  Fran 
Cisco — The  Industrial  Activities  of  Ralston — The  First  Irrigation  Project  and 
Its  Outcome — Abatement  of  the  Speculative  Mania — A  Milked-Dry  Community. 


HE  failure  of  superficial  observers  of  the  course  of  events 
in  California  to  go  back  far  enough  in  their  effort  to  as- 
certain the  cause  of  the  so-called  sand-lot  troubles  has 
led  to  many  misconceptions.  If  the  inquiry  is  to  be 
thorough  it  must  begin  in  the  opening  years  of  the 
seventies,  and  it  will  be  found  in  the  editorial  com- 
ment and  in  the  news  columns  of  the  San  Francisco 
press;  and  perhaps  it  is  not  taking  an  extreme  view  of 
the  matter  to  say  that  an  editor  who  subsequently  attained  an  inter- 
national reputation  as  an  economic  writer  started  a  movement,  the  progress 
of  which  could  not  be  arrested  until  a  complete  reform  was  effected.  It 
does  not  matter  that  it  was  not  brought  about  in  the  mode  he  conceived  to 
be  proper;  the  really  important  thing  is  the  fact  that  the  monopolization  of 
the  land  which  he  dwelt  upon  was  broken,  and  the  abuse  which  he  con- 
demned was  effectually  and  permanently  done  away  with  in  California, 
which,  to  his  alarmed  vision  in  1870,  presented  the  spectacle  of  a  great 
State  in  the  hands  of  a  few  landlords,  who  would  ultimately  control  all  the 
land  within  its  borders. 

The  writer  referred  to  was  Henry  George,  author  of  "Progress  and 
Poverty,"  wlio  began  his  literary  career,  as  many  others  have  done,  as  a 
typesetter,   graduating   from   the   compositor's   case   to   the   editor's   desk. 
George  was  a  very  earnest  and  an  intensely  sympathetic  man, 
Henry  ^  ^^^  ^^^  ^^^^  position  of  editor  he  was  disposed  to  inaugurate 

nection  With    crw^a^^es  against  oppressors.     In  1873,  while  acting  as  editor 
The  Chronicle  of  the  Evening  Post,  he  took  up  the  case  of  some   sailors 
who  had  been  brutally  treated  by  the  captain  of  the  ship 
^"unrise  and  his  officers.    His  earnestness  and  the  vigor  of  the  prosecution, 

78 


Stock  Speculation  and  Land  Reform  79 

which  was  conducted  with  the  assistance  of  W.  H.  L.  Barnes,  one  of  the 
city's  foremost  attorneys,  resulted  in  the  conviction  and  punishment  of  the 
offenders.  The  case  attracted  international  attention  and  won  a  decoration 
for  the  attorney,  and  the  editor  of  the  Post  received  as  his  reward  tlie 
applause  of  the  community.  Prior  to  George's  connection  with  the  Post 
he  had  done  some  editorial  work  for  The  Chronicle,  which  had,  as  early  as 
1869,  hegun  to  express  its  disapprohation  of  the  policy  of  encouraging  land 
monopoly.  The  files  of  The  Chronicle  between  1870  and  1873  contain 
several  editorials  on  the  land  question  which  were  probably  written  by  him, 
none  of  which,  however,  suggest  the  physiocrat  idea  of  making  the  entire 
burden  of  taxation  fall  on  land.  There  is  one  in  particular  in  which  the 
writer  expressed  views  very  similar  to  those  which  had  earlier  appeared  in 
an  article  published  in  the  Overland  Monthly  over  George's  signature,  in 
which  he  predicted  that  the  overland  railway,  approaching  completion, 
would  prove  a  detriment  rather  than  a  benefit  to  the  State  of  California. 

George  and  The  Chronicle  were  by  no  means  alone  in  their  antagonism 
to  land  monopoly.  All  the  papers  recognized  the  big  holdings  resulting 
from  the  liberal  grants  made  by  the  Spanish  and  later  by  the  Mexican 
government  as  a  great  evil,  but  some  of  them  did  not  permit 
Opposition  ^j^g  criticism  to  extend  to  the  gifts  made  to  the  overland 
Land  railroad   by   Congress.      There   is   nothing  surprising   about 

Monopoly  this  abstention,  for  it  was  supposed  that  the  provision  in  the 

subsidy  acts  which  required  the  corporation  to  sell  the  granted 
lands  at  a  price  not  exceeding  double  the  minimum  charged  for  Govern- 
ment lands  would  result  in  the  alternate  sections  being  promptly  sold  to 
settlers.  It  was  not  foreseen  that  the  device  of  contract  and  finance  com- 
panies, which  had  enabled  the  builders  of  the  transcontinental  railway  to 
acquire  immense  fortunes  by  contracting  with  themselves,  would  be  em- 
ployed to  successfully  lock  up  the  most  desirable  land  so  that  it  might  be 
sold  at  prices  in  excess  of  tliose  fixed  by  the  subsidy  act.  And,  besides, 
the  notions  concerning  the  disposition  of  Government  lands  at  the  time 
were  exceedingly  liberal,  as  the  records  will  show,  the  opinion  generally 
prevailing  that  the  sooner  they  passed  into  the  possession  of  settlers,  or  into 
private  ownership,  without  restriction,  the  better  it  would  be  for  the 
country  at  large. 

But  the  most  potent  influence  in  diverting  attention  from  reform  move- 
ments was  the  sudden  change  in  business  conditions  produced  by  a  brisk 
speculative  movemet  in  the  mining  stock  market  in  1872,  which  was 
accentuated  by  the  discovery  of  the  fabulously  rich  mines 
The  Big  which  afterward  became  known  as  "Thei  Big  Bonanza."    This 

Discovery  lucky  find  in  1875  was  immediately  followed  by  a  fever  of 
in  1875  speculation  which  made  that  of  the  previous  decade  seem  in- 

significant by  comparison.  The  Big  Bonanza  consisted  of 
several  mining  properties  on  the  Comstock  lode  in  Nevada,  known  as  the 
Consolidated  Virginia.  These  valuable  mines  were  owned  by  four  men, 
John  W.  Mackay,  James  G.  Fair,  James  C.  Flood  and  William  O'Brien. 
From  first  to  last  they  produced  nearly  two  hundred  million  dollars  to 
which  must  be  added  about  $138,000,000  more  taken  out  of  other  mines 
of  the  Comstock  in  previous  years.  It  would  have  been  impossible  to 
have  injected  into  the  channels  of  trade  so  vast  a  sum  without  giving  a 
great  impetus  to  business  and  creating  an  atmosphere  of  prosperity  fatal 


80  Journalism  in  California 

to  tlie  practice  of  economy.  Easy  come,  easy  go,  produced  a  condition  of 
artificial  briskness  wliicli  did  not  reckon  witli  the  future.  Everyone  was 
anxious  to  get  rich,  and  everyone  speculated  in  the  hope  that  fortune 
would  smile  upon  him.  It  was  a  groat  gamble  in  which  the  dealers  used 
marked  cards;  the  public  was  not  unaware  of  the  nature  of  the  game, 
nor  of  the  character  of  the  men  Avho  shuffled,  cut  and  dealt,  but  that  made 
no  difference.  They  "sat  in/'  and  submitted  to  being  fleeced  with  a  meek- 
ness which  deservedly  earned  for  them  the  name  lambs,  which  Avas  con- 
temptuously applied  by  those  who  sheared  them. 

The  press  for  a  while  was  influenced  by  the  glamour  produced  by  the 
enormous  output  of  the  precious  metals,  and  saw  little  that  called  for  se- 
rious deprecation.  The  objection  of  the  earlier  period  when  a  merchant 
who  dabbled  in  stocks  was  regarded  with  suspicion  had  disappeared,  and 
few  escaped  the  contagion.  Everybody  bought  shares.  The  minister  and 
his  deacons,  the  master  and  his  servant,  the  doctor,  the  lawyer,  the  me- 
chanic and  the  day  laborer  were  all  eager  investors,  and 
^®.  watched  the   reports   of  the  fluctuations  of  stocks  with  fe- 

Stock  verish  interest.     The  established  press  no  longer  satisfied  the 

Gamble  unlimited  demand  for  news  and  gossip  about  the  mines,  and 

special  class  papers  were  called  into  existence.  The  little 
sheet  with  quotations  known  as  the  Stock  Report  expanded  into  a  good- 
sized  paper,  chiefly  if  not  wholly  devoted  to  mining  intelligence,  and  a  new 
candidate  for  favor,  named  the  Stock  Exchange,  came  into  existence.  They 
have  both  passed  away,  but  during  the  period  when  the  excitement  ran 
high  they  were  in  great  demand  and  were  read  with  much  interest,  not 
alone  for  their  mining  news,  but  as  well  for  their  bright  and  breezy  com- 
ment on  current  events  and  the  foibles  of  the  actors  in  the  big  speculative 
game.  They  by  no  means  occupied  the  center  of  the  stage,  for  the  dailies 
generally  were  quick  to  perceive  the  eager  interest  of  the  community  in  all 
things  pertaining  to  the  mining  game  and  ministered  to  it  in  various  ways. 
The  methods  of  the  mine  operators  were  essentially  secretive  and  investiga- 
tions started  for  the  purpose  of  learning  facts  or  to  expose  misrepresenta- 
tions were  common,  and  it  may  be  added  that  exposure  and  truthful  infor- 
mation produced  little  effect  on  the  pithlic,  the  gambling  mania  having  for 
the  time  destroyed  its  capacity  for  rational  thought  and  action. 

The  occurrences  of  the  three  or  four  years  while  the  excitement  ran 
liighest  would  have  provided  subjects  for  many  a  novel,  for  they  realized  to 
the  fullest  the  saying  that  fact  is  stranger  than  fiction,  and  were  suggestive 
of  plots  which  were  hardly  imaginable.     Fortunes  were  made 
Stocks  r^^^\  j^g^  overnight;  the  saloon-keeper  of  yesterday  was  the 

the  millionaire  of  tomorrow,  and  the  man  in  comfortable  circum- 

Mischief  stances  who  risked  the  hazard  of  the  game  emerged  from  it 

stripped.  There  were  tragedies  innumerable,  and  San  Fran- 
cisco's suicide  list  was  abnormally  swollen.  Did  a  man  go  wrong  in  a 
business  way,  the  blame  was  placed  on  stocks.  A  trusted  treasurer  was 
shy  in  his  accounts  some  $300,000,  and  the  public  did  not  wonder,  for  the 
explanation  came  promptly  that  stocks  did  the  mischief.  If  a  corrupt  offi- 
cial seemed  to  be  accumulating  wealth  too  rapidly  suspicion  as  to  its 
source  was  diverted  by  the  information  that  he  had  made  a  winning.  The 
community  was  easily  satisfied  and  manifested  a  disposition  to  regard  the 
basest  forms  of  deception  as  a  joke.     A  minister  was  given  a  tip  in  con- 


Stock  Speculation  and  Land  Reform  81 

fidence  by  a  wealthy  operator.  The  pointer  proved  to  be  a  false  one,  and 
the  generous  manipulator  with  professions  of  regret  made  good  the  divine's 
loss,  but  the  deacons  and  the  other  members  of  his  congregation  who  shared 
the  information  confidentially  imparted  to  him  paid  tlie  piper. 

The  twentieth  century  speculator  in  grain  probably  gets  as  much  excite- 
ment out  of  a  market  in  which  a  fraction  of  a  cent  represents  points,  but 
movements  of  that  sort  cannot  possibly  appeal  to  the  imagination  as  the  tre- 
mendous fluctuations  in  the  value  of  shares  expressed  in  dol- 
Wall  and  j^^.^  ^j^  ^^  ||^g  years  following  the  uncovering  of  the  Big  Bon- 

Streets  anza.    The  stock  of  Ophir,  quoted  at  $G5  on  October  6,  1875, 

Compared  was  down  to  $39  on  November  4th.    California  was  depressed 

from  $54  to  $21  in  an  equally  brief  period.  These  rapid  al- 
ternations were  not  confined  to  the  stocks  of  the  mines  known  to  be  produc- 
tive. Shares  of  companies  concerning  which  the  public  had  no  information 
other  than  that  which  interested  parties  chose  to  impart  were  as  eagerly 
dealt  in  as  if  they  were  dividend-paying  concerns.  If  a  strike  was  made 
in  a  productive  mine  the  shares  of  all  the  companies  located  in  the  neigh- 
borhood rose  in  sympathy.  Men  seemed  to  yearn  for  misinformation  and 
misrepresentation,  and  regarded  with  disfavor  those  who  sought  to  open 
their  eyes  to  the  facts.  The  manipulators  were  ready  with  calumny  to 
assail  those  who  exposed  their  deception.  If  a  newspaper  persistently 
warned  its  readers  that  they  were  being  made  the  victims  of  adroit  rascals 
no  attempt  was  made  to  disprove  its  accusations;  a  rejoinder  from  the 
accused  that  the  accusing  editor  had  been  "stung"  sufficed.  It  did  not 
occur  to  a  community  obsessed  with  the  desire  for  gain  to  reflect  that  ex- 
perience is  excellently  adapted  to  qualify  a  person  to  give  advice. 

Perhaps  the  most  tragic  occurrence  of  this  saturnalia  of  speculation 
was  the  death  of  W.  C.  Ralston,  the  president  of  the  Bank  of  California, 
which  closely  followed  the  temporary  closing  of  the  doors  of  that  institution 
on  the  26th  of  August,  1875.     Ralston's  business  career  was 
^f^th^^  one  of  exceptional  brilliancy.     He  was  untiring  in  his  efforts 

Bank  of  ^o  promote  industry  of  all  kinds,  and  his  desire  to  stimulate 

California  the  development  of  the  resources  of  the  State  was  unbounded. 
His  failures  have  sometime*  been  treated  as  avoidable 
blunders,  but  some  of  them  were  based  on  economic  ideas  usually  reckoned 
as  sound.  He  used  his  personal  funds  and  those  of  the  bank  lil)erally  to 
stimulate  manufacturing.  The  production  of  wool  was  a  leading  indus- 
try of  tlie  State,  but  the  raw  material  was  shipped  to  remote  countries  to  be 
fashioned  into  cloth,  which  was  sent  back  in  the  form  of  goods  ready  for 
consumption.  Ealston  sought  to  correct  this  economic  absurdity  by  found- 
ing the  Mission  Woolen  Mills.  The  factory  succeeded  in  producing  ex- 
cellent flannel,  cloth  and  blankets,  but  did  not  pay  as  an  investment.  It 
was  preposterous  to  bring  carriages  and  wagons  thousands  of  miles  when 
they  could  be  made  at  home,  but  the  Kimball  Carriage  Factory,  although 
it  turned  out  fine  vehicles,  was  a  financial  failure.  The  West  Coast  Furni- 
ture Company  started  by  him  was  equally  unfortunate.  We  now  know 
why  these  ventures  failed,  and  realize  that  manufacturing  cannot  be  forced 
in  a  region  with  a  limited  consuming  population  and  a  high  labor  cost, 
but  our  knowledge  is  largely  founded  on  his  painful  experiences. 

That  he  failed  in  some  enterprises  does  not  detract  from  the  fact  that 
he  was  the  foremost  man  of  his  day  in  San  Francisco,  standing  head  and 


82  Journalism  in  California 

shoulders  above  his  rivals  and  detractors.    In  addition  to  the  concerns  above 
enumerated,  he  was  instrumental  in  promoting  many  others. 
of  °an     °"         ■^^  ^^^  especially  interested   in  irrigation   and  long  before 
Irrigation  Californians  had  broke  away  from  the  belief  that  the  future 

Project  of  agriculture  was  bound  up  with  the  cereals  he  began  to 

stimulate  experiments  in  intensive  culture.  He  was  among 
the  most  energetic  in  promoting  the  project  of  redeeming  the  west  side  of 
the  San  Joaquin  valley  by  the  construction  of  a  canal  which  was  to  lead 
the  waters  from  Tulare  to  tidewater.  lie  had  unbounded  faith  in  San 
Francisco  and  was  the  first  to  give  practical  effect  to  the  claim  that  it  was 
capable  of  being  made  "the  Paris  of  America."  He  conceived  the  magnifi- 
cent project  of  building  the  biggest  and  handsomest  hotel  in  the  world,  and 
the  conception  was  nearly  realized  when  he  was  drowned  at  Black  point  on 
the  bay,  succeeding  the  closing  of  the  doors  of  the  bank  whose  affairs  he 
had  controlled  for  so  many  years. 

The  failure  of  the  bank  was  precipitated  by  a  struggle  for  the  control 
of  one  of  the  great  mining  properties,  the  contestants  being  the  men  who 
originally   had   possession   of   the   Bonanza   mines.      Although   the   pul)lic 
had  unbounded  faith  in  the  solidity  of  the  Bank  of  California, 
Cause  of  there   were   occasional   doubts  expressed  respecting  the  pro- 

Bank  of  priety  of  a  man  in  the  position  of  Ralston  engaging  in  such  a 

California  contest,  but  the  common  assumption  that  all  those  heavily  in- 
terested in  the  institution  were  standing  together  hardly  left 
room  for  the  suspicion  that  he  was  acting  on  his  own  responsibility.  Al- 
though Ealston  was  regarded  as  a  man  of  immense  wealth,  capable  of 
taking  care  of  himself,  he  was  generally  associated  in  the  popular  mind 
with  the  group  with  whom  he  operated  and  which  was  commonly  spoken  of 
as  the  bank  crowd.  It  is  not  necessary  to  go  into  details  of  the  contest  in 
which  Ealston  was  worsted,  further  than  to  say  that  it  made  a  heavy  draft 
on  the  institution's  reserves.  So  unexpected  was  the  outcome  that  on  the 
morning  of  August  2Gth  large  deposits  were  made  by  well  informed  opera- 
tors. But  this  confidence  was  disturbed  with  startling  rapidity.  At  2  p.  m., 
a  small  crowd  had  gathered  at  the  teller's  window;  at  2:15,  a  run  had 
developed ;  at  2 :40,  Ealston  stepped  from  his  private  office  and  ordered 
the  teller  to  cease  paying.  The  next  day  the  banker,  while  bathing  at  Black 
point,  as  was  his  daily  practice,  w^as  seized  with  a  cramp  and  was 
drowned. 

The  effect  on  the  community  was  amazing.    The  failure  and  the  rapidly 
following  tragedy  divided  the  city  into  two  camps.     Concern  for  the  elfect 
of  the  suspension  of  payments  was  subordinated  in  the  minds  of  the  majority 
by  genuine   sympathy  for  the  victim   of  what   a   later  and 
^•^•n'^d  calmer   judgment   decided  was  loose   banking  practices.     A 

Into  Two  P'^rt  of  the  press  was  sweeping  in  its  denunciations,  endeavor- 

Camps  ing  to  throw  all  the  blame  upon  Ealston,  disregarding  the 

fact  that  those  interested  with  him  would  have  cheerfully 
shared  the  benefits  if  he  had  won  out.  At  first,  it  was  proposed  to  declare 
the  bank  insolvent,  but  the  liability  of  stockholders  act  proved  an  obstacle  to 
such  a  course  and  rehabilitation  was  agreed  upon,  "William  Sharon  shoulder- 
ing the  chief  responsibility.  As  soon  as  the  affairs  of  the  bank  could  be 
thoroughly  investigated  payments  were  resumed,  and  the  institution 
promptly  resumed  its  old-time  leading  position.     On  the  4th  of  November 


IxNJTERIOR    COURT    OF    PALACE    HOTEL. 
Erected  by  W.   C.   Ralston  in   1875,  destroyed  by  fire   of  1906. 


Stock  Speculation  and  Land  Reform 


83 


following  the  Xevada  Bank  was  started  by  Flood,  O'Brien  and  Mackay, 
but  it  never  attained  to  the  financial  importance  of  its  rival. 

The  failure  of  the  Bank  of  California  did  not  put  an  end  to  the 
speculative  game,  but  there  was  a  visible  abatement  of  the  fever  and  a 
growing  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  people  to  take  an  account  of  stock. 
Before  the  death  of  Ealston  The  Chronicle  had  frequently 
^^'^^^J'^*®"^®"*  pointed  out  the  pitfalls  prepared  for  the  feet  of  the  unwary. 
Speculative  ''^^^  after  tliat  event  it  was  unceasing  in  its  exposure  of  the 
Mania  false  pretenses  of  manipulators,  its  most  effective  work  in 

this  regard  being  statistically  accomplished.  Day  after  day 
articles  were  published  showing  how  purchasers  of  stock  were  duped  by 
the  issuance  of  false  statements,  and  the  large  amounts  paid  in  the  form  of 
assessments,  which  were  consumed  in  the  maintenance  of  high-priced  offi- 
cials and  handsomely  appointed  offices,  were  paraded.  But,  while  the 
statements  made  were  undeniably  trutiiful,  it  is  doubtful  whether  they 
would  have  made  much  impression  if  the  meretricious  appearance  of  pros- 
perity could  have  been  maintained.  Tiiat  was  impossible,  however,  because 
the  community  had  been  milked  dry;  and,  unfortunately,  the  lack  of  diver- 
sification of  industries  had  prepared  the  way  for  something  like  a  complete 
breakdown.  When  the  State  was  visited  by  a  disastrous  dry  season  in 
1876-77,  it  so  curtailed  production  that  prosperity  tied,  and,  in  its  place, 
there  was  unemployment,  discontent  and  those  uneasy  manifestations  which 
are  taken  for  a  desire  for  reform,  but,  as  the  sequel  in  this  case  shows,  are 
sometimes  a  realization  of  the  couplet: 

The  devil  ivas  sick,  the  devil  a  monh  would  he; 
The  devil  ivas  ivell,  the  devil  a  monk  was  he. 


CHAPTER  XI 


THE   STOEY   OF  GEORGE   M.   PINNEY  AND  A  BIG 
LIBEL    SUIT. 

Result  of  Agitation  Against  Land  Monopoly — The  Product  of  the  Bonanza  Mines — 
An  Extremely  Capable  Chief  Clerk  of  the  Mint — The  Meteoric  Career  of  George 
M.  Pinney — Broker,  Millionaire,  Enlisted  Man  and  a  Political  Boss  All  Eolled 
Into  One  Personality — Pinney  Meets  With  Reverses  and  Flees  the  Country — 
His  Adventurous  Voyage  to  South  America — Sends  Out  S.  O.  S.  Calls,  Which 
Are  Not  Heeded — Pinney  Surrenders  Himself  as  a  Deserter  From  the  Navy — 
Pinney  Makes  Accusations  Which  Create  a  Sensation- — Politicians  Invoke  the 
Law  of  Libel — The  Chronicle  Assailed  for  Exposing  Political  Corruption — How 
an  Editor  Got  Rid  of  Some  Bad  Eggs — Pinney  Has  an  Attack  of  Forgetful- 
ness — Pinney  's  Financial  Operations  Cause  the  Wreck  of  Several  Banks — Crea- 
tion of  a  Bank   Commission  the  Result  of  The   Chronicle 's  Exposures. 


HE  facts  cited  establish  beyond  dispute  that  tlie  so-called 
sand-lot  troubles  did  not  come  from  a  clear  sky.  There 
were  evidences  of  discontent  long  before  the  eruption 
took  place,  and  they  were  by  no  means  the  product  of 
riffraff  talk.  They  w^ere  genuine  manifestations  of  dis- 
satisfaction with  a  condition  of  affairs  which  meant  mis- 
chief and  were  a  source  of  apprehension  to  the  thought- 
ful. Henry  George's  diatribes  against  land  monopolists 
and  the  vigorous  editorials  of  The  Chronicle  may  be  chargeable  with  stir- 
ring the  public  mind,  but  it  cannot  be  urged  that  they  gave  an  untrue  pic- 
ture of  the  situation  or  that  their  prophecies  might  not  have  been  fully 
realized  had  not  the  agitation  stirred  up  by  them  effected  a  genuine  and 
enduring  reform.  It  is  a  fact  that  the  bettering  of  affairs  was  not  accom- 
plished by  the  adoption  of  George's  panacea,  and  it  is  equally  certain  that 
The  Chronicle  did  not  foresee  the  method  by  which  land  monopoly  was 
eventually  rendered  impossible  in  California,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
true  that  the  agitation  of  the  seventies  paved  the  way  for  the  adoption  of  a 
system  of  land  taxation  which  made  it  impossible  for  the  owners  of  great 
tracts  to  preserve  them  intact. 

It  has  been  related  how  the  agitation  which  seemed  to  have  opened  so 
formidably  in  1872  was  interrupt'ed  by  the  spasm  of  prosperity  produced 
by  the  discovery  of  the  Bonanza  mines  and  the  successful  workings  of  other 
properties  on  the  Comstock,  which,  according  to  a  computation  made  by  a 
careful  stockbroker,  added  at  least  $340,000,000  of  the  precious  metals 
to  the  world's  stock  in  the  course  of  a  few  years,  but  the  conciseness  with 
which  the  salient  facts  of  the  great  speculation  was  presented  pre- 
vented the  mention  of  some  details  of  a  highly  interesting  character  to 

84 


The   Chronicle   Assails   Corruption  85 

the  student  of  economics,  and  still  others  the  relation  of  which  would  corrob- 
orate the  assertion  that  the  city  was  half  crazed  by  the  passion  for  gambling. 
It  is  not  essential  that  the  reader  should  l)e  informed  that  the 
Circumstances  caller  of  one  of  the  stock  boards  advertised  his  prosperity  by 
Linked  wearing  a  fresh  pair  of  pantaloons  every  day  in  the  year,  or 

Together  tliat  it  was  considered  a  joke  for  a  flourishing  broker  to  be 

seen  with  his  wife  on  the  Cliff  House  road  rather 
than  with  some  other  "lady,"  but,  in  order  to  understand  clearly  the 
origins  of  a  trouble  which  caused  the  closing  of  several  banks,  the  temporary 
obscuration  of  a  national  party  in  the  State,  one  of  the  most  bitterly  waged 
wars  against  a  newspaper  and  which  finally  played  a  leading  part  in  causing 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  1879,  it  will  be  necessary  to  relate  with 
some  circumstantiality  a  number  of  occurrences  which,  when  properly 
linked  together,  tell  a  story  abounding  in  more  exciting  experiences  than 
can  be  found  between  the  covers  of  the  most  sensational  novel. 

During  the  early  part  of  his  incumbency  of  the  position  of  superin- 
tendent of  the  United  States  Branch  Mint  in  this  city,  Oscar  11.  La 
Grange  had  for  his  chief  clerk  a  man  named  George  M.  Pinney.  Pinney 
was  a  person  of  exceptional  attainments,  as  the  sequel  will 
Extremely  show.  There  was  no  doubt  about  his  competency.  All  the 
Capable  civil  service  examiners,  aided  by  a  perfect  merit  system,  could 

Clerk  not  have  found  a  more  capable  chief  clerk.     Had  Pinney  ap- 

plied his  talents  exclusively  to  the  performance  of  his  duties 
he  would  have  been  a  model  functionary,  but  he  had  other  fish  to  fry. 
Whether  all  of  his  qualifications  were  kno-^Ti  to  those  who  placed  him 
in  his  position,  or  whether  he  developed  them  after  he  became  chief 
clerk,  is  a  matter  of  doubt,  but  it  is  certain  that  very  shortly  after  he  entered 
the  Mint  he  began  to  take  a  hand  in  local  politics,  so  far  as  they  connected 
up  with  the  selection  of  Congressmen  and  Senators.  La  Grange,  who 
owed  his  appointment  to  President  Grant,  who  knew  him  as  a  soldier,  was 
an  easy-going  sort  of  individual,  who  readily  fell  in  with  the  idea  that  the 
chief  duty  of  a  Federal  official  was  to  help  along  the  men  who  put  him 
into  position.  Consequently,  he  rarely  interfered  with  his  principal  sub- 
ordinate, who,  in  spite  of  his  devotion  to  politics,  seemed  to  experience  no 
difficulty  in  running  the  office. 

But,  despite  his  proficiency,   Pinney  was  only  a  man  after  all,  and 
could  not  perform  the  impossible  feat  of  being  in  several  places  at  one  time. 
He  would  have  experienced  little  trouble  in  holding  down  his  chief  clerk- 
ship job  and  manipulating  local  politics  concurrently,   but 
A  Too  when  he  attempted  to  combine  with  those  activities  that  of 

Sided  stockbroker  on  the  floor  of  an  exchange  in  a  period  of  great 

Functionary  excitement,  he  found  that  he  had  his  hands  more  than  full 
and  had  to  be  relieved.  He  was  too  useful  a  man  to  be 
j)ermitted  to  get  out  of  politics,  so  another  position  was  found  for  him,  and 
this  time  it  was  in  an  office  in  which  there  were  no  strings  of  duty  on  him. 
He  was  made  chief  clerk  of  the  naval  pay  inspector,  but  under  conditions 
which  might  have  been  regarded  as  a  degradation  by  those  who  did  not 
know  all  the  circumstances.  In  order  to  fill  the  position,  he  had  to  be 
enlisted  in  the  Navy.  The  enlistment  was  merely  a  formality,  for,  as  the 
records  show,  Pinney  from  the  beginning  was  the  boss  and  Rufus  C. 
Spalding,  his  nominal  superior,  was  as  putty  in  his  hands. 


86  Journalism  in  California 

Pinney,  for  a  while,  was  very  fortunate  in  mining  ventures  entered 
into  after  his  purchase  of  a  seat  on  the  exchange.  In  1872  he  was  sup- 
posed to  he  a  millionaire,  and  it  was  known  that  he  had  an  interest  in 

properties  in  Idaho  which  were  regarded  as  valuahle.  But 
pfnnev's  '  ^^^^  ^°^  ^  cautious  operator.     While  not  a   plunger,  he 

Meteoric  was  bold  and  quite  ready  to  take  big  risks,  and  when  the 

Career  Bonanza  craze  was  at  its  highest  he  was  speculating  with 

great  freedom.  Xo  one  thought  of  asking  where  the  large 
sums  of  money  staked  by  him  came  from.  In  the  midst  of  a  crowd  of 
frenzied  people  all  bent  on  getting  rich,  a  bank  burglar  might  have  invested 
his  loot  if  it  consisted  of  marked  greenbacks  without  exciting  suspicion, 
and,  for  a  man  who  had  the  reputation  of  being  on  "Easy  street,"  and  who 
was  supposed  to  own  rich  mines  in  Idaho,  it  was  not  thought  strange  that 
he  should  be  putting  up  large  sums  on  margin.  Nor  was  it  considered  a 
matter  worthy  attention  or  comment  that  he  should  be  operating  with  the 
chief  local  boss  of  the  Eepublican  party,  the  man  who  had  the  reputation 
of  arranging  delicate  affairs  with  the  Legislature  for  the  railroad  managers, 
and  who  enjoyed  the  intimate  friendship  of  a  United  States  Senator  and 
Congressmen. 

Like  many  others,  who  for  a  while  seemed  to  be  riding  on  the  crest 
of  the  wave  of  prosperity,  Pinney  suffered  reverses.  His  mining  adventures 
in  Idaho  went  to  the  bad,  and  the  sources  of  his  former  supplies  of  ''mud'' 

were  dried  up,  and  one  fine  morning  he  was  numbered  among 
'P'l®^  the  missing.'   His  sudden  disappearance  excited  little  atten- 

•^illi  tion  on  change ;  there  were  too  many  who  were  dropping  out 

Reverses  without  explanation  to  create  a  commotion,  and,  as  no  one 

seemed  to  be  hurt,  no  fuss  was  made.  Something  like  a 
sensation  was  created  in  social  circles  as  it  was  understood  that  George  had 
deserted  his  wife,  a  very  estimable  woman,  and  had  fled  with  a  disreputable 
female.  The  memory  of  the  affair  was  revived  by  the  steps  taken  by  Mrs. 
Pinney  to  secure  a  divorce,  and  occasionally  San  Franciscans  were  reminded 
that  Pinney  was  still  alive  by  floating  rumors  from  South  America  that 
he  was  flourishing  like  a  green  bay  tree,  especially  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  high-class  gambling  houses  of  the  cities  of  the  Latin-American 
republics,  the  most  persistent  of  the  stories  locating  him  in  Valparaiso, 
Chile. 

Eumor  told  the  truth,  but  not  the  whole  truth.  Pinney  did  reach 
Chile,  but  he  was  not  satisfied  with  life  as  he  found  it  in  the  seaport  of 
Valparaiso.     Perhaps  he  might  have  been  had  his  former  pals  continued 

to  pay  attention  to  his  demands  for  money,  but  they  refused 
B    e^hi^  to  do  so,  doubtless  thinking  that  a  man  so  far  away  as  Chile 

With  the  could  not  harm  them.    They  had  furnished  him  with  $12,000 

Skipper  when  he  fled  on  the  British  ship  Baron  Ballantyne  on  the 

1st  of  September,  1875.  This  amount,  if  frugally  used, 
should  last  a  resourceful  man  like  Pinney  a  long  time,  they  thought,  and 
let  it  go  at  that.  But  Pinney  was  not  frugal,  but  he  was  resourceful.  That 
he  was  not  frugal  is  attested  by  the  fact  that  when  ho  got  tired  of  the 
woman  who  had  accompanied  him  he  paid  the  Captain  of  the  Ballantyne 
$2000  to  put  him  ashore  at  Pernambuco.  It  is  said  that  the  bargain  was 
facilitated  by  the  fact  that  the  skipper  had  become  infatuated  with  the  frail 
one.     Be  that  as  it  may,  Pinney  was  put  ashore  in  the  Brazilian  port  and 


The  Chronicle  Assails  Corruption 


thence  made  liis  way  to  Chile,  where  lie  enjoyed  himself  getting  rid  of  the 
remainder  of  the  amount  with  which  he  was  staked  by  his  wicked  but 
careless  partners. 

When  Pinney's  S.  0.  S.  calls  went  unheeded,  he  resolved  on  the  course 
which  resulted  in  making  a  great  deal  of  exciting  and  important    San 
Francisco   history.      He   pulled    up    stakes   in    Chile    and   sailed   for   the 
United  States,  and  one  fine  May  day  in  1877  he  made  his 
S.^O^T^  appearance  in  the  city  of  Washington.     Notwithstanding  the 

Calls  fact  that  he  had  formerly  enjoyecl  the  intimacy  of  Senators 

Unanswered  and  Representatives,  not  to  speak  of  numerous  Federal  offi- 
cials, he  neglected  to  call  upon  them,  but,  instead,  marched 
straight  to  the  Navy  Department  and  there  surrendered  himself  as  a 
deserter.  It  appears,  however,  that  they  were  not  looking  for  deserters 
of  his  kind,  and  treated  his  surrender  as  a  useless  formality.  But  Pinney 
was,  for  the  moment,  disposed  to  treat  it  seriously,  and  sought  the  cor- 
respondent of  the  San  Francisco  Chronicle  at  the  national  capital.  To 
him  Pinney  told  a  story  of  fear  of  being  arrested  that  had  haunted  him 
for  a  couple  of  years  or  more,  and  which  he  had  sought  to  assuage  by  sail- 
ing several  thousand  miles  for  the  purpose  of  delivering  himself  to  the 
authorities.  He  also  told  a  tale  which  was  telegraphed  to  The  Chronicle, 
the  appearance  of  which  on  the  morning  of  May  7,  1877,  shook  San  Fran- 
cisco from  center  to  circumference,  and  which  caused  nearly  as  great  a 
commotion  at  the  national  capital,  pointing  as  it  directly  did  at  corrupt 
practices  of  naval  contractors. 

Pinney's  relation  can  be  condensed  into  the  statement  that  he  charged 
certain  contractors  named  Montaigne,  Hanscom  and  Jordan  with  improp- 
erly obtaining  large  sums  of  money  for  repair  work  alleged  to  have  been 
done  at  the  Mare  Island  Navy  Yard,  and  that  Senator  Aaron 
Made**^°"^  ^'  Sargent  and  Congressman  Horace  F.  Page  knew  of  the 
yyy  irregularities.     He  also  stated  that  Page  had  paid  $3  apiece 

Pinney  for   a   number   of   votes   cast   for  him,   and   indicated   in   a 

general  way  the  existence  of  a  ring  which  had  succeeded  in 
gobbling  a  vast  quantity  of  arable  land  under  the  loose  provisions  of  the 
desert  land  act.  The  accusations  fitted  in  with  charges  iterated  and  reiter- 
ated by  the  New  York  Sun,  and  which  were  being  investigated  by  Congress, 
that  large  sums  of  money  were  being  spent  under  the  guise  of  repairing  to 
build  new  ships  which  at  that  time  was  accounted  a  high  crime  by  Demo- 
crats, it  being  the  policy  of  the  party,  which  had  a  big  majority  in  the 
House,  to  discourage  the  creation  of  a  Navy,  at  least  until  they  could  con- 
trol its  construction.  The  reason  assigned  for  this  attitude  was  the  belief 
that  the  Navy  Department's  affairs  were  being  corruptly  administered  by 
the  Republican  Secretary,   Secor  Robeson. 

The  appearance  of  the  dispatch  in  The  Chronicle  on  the  morning  of 
May  7th  was  th^  signal  for  an  attempt  to  have  its  proprietors  criminally 
indicted  in  every  county  in  the  State,  but  the  effort  proved  successful  in 
one  county  only,  that  of  El  Dorado,  which  contained  the  home  town  of 
Page,  who  had  followed  the  honest  occupation  of  stage  driver  before  he 
engaged  in  politics.  This  forced  The  Chronicle  to  incur  heavy  expenses, 
its  witnesses  being  compelled  to  travel  great  distances  in  order  to  testify. 
The  trial  was  a  protracted  one  and  was  bitterly  contested.  The  accused  men 
had  a  number  of  prominent  attorneys  and  The  Chronicle  was  well  repre- 


Journalism  in  California 


scnted  on  its  side  by  Alexander  Campbell  and  David  S.  Terry.     Pinney 
...  was  the  principal  witness,  being  on  the  stand  several  days. 

Invok"^"^        During  the  course  of  the  trial  he  made  many  revelations  con- 
the  cerning  the  luethods  of  the  men  in  control  of  the  destinies  of 

Libel  Law        the    Republican    party    in    California,    and    of    the    means 

adopted  by  them  to  improperly  secure  large  tracts  of  Govern- 
ment land.  In  his  testimony  on  the  first  trial  he  touched  upon  the  methods 
of  the  Navy  pay  inspector's  office,  and  disclosed  what  was  known  to  only 
a  few  at  the  time,  that  at  least  two  San  Francisco  banks  held  large  quan- 
tities of  worthless  paper  which  had  been  accepted  as  security  for  loans 
made  to  him. 

The  first  trial  resulted  in  a  failure  to  convict;  the  proprietors  of  The 
Chronicle  were  not  acquitted  by  the  jury,  but  the  people  of  the  State  showed 
their  confidence  in  the  paper  by  greatly  adding  to  its  circulation  and  by 

converting  a  big  Republican  majority  in  California  into  a 
Chronicle's  rousing  lead  for  the  Democrats.  The  Chronicle  had  always 
Exposure  of  '^een  stanchly  Republican,  but  never  hesitated  to  assail  what 
Abuses  it  considered  abuses.     Very  early  in  its  career  it  had  come 

into  collision  with  the  petty  municipal  bosses,  who  resented 
interference  with  their  slatemaking.  Following  the  example  of  the  People's 
party  junta,  they  sought  to  put  a  ticket  forward  which  was  filled  with 
objectionable  names.  Charles  de  Young  protested  to  the  manipulators,  who 
asked  him  what  he  was  going  to  do  about  it,  facetiously  reminding  him  that 
The  Chronicle  was  a  Republican  paper  and  would  have  to  stand  by  the 
party.  It  was  a  late  hour  at  night  when  he  received  the  refusal  to  be 
decent,  but  not  too  late  to  convince  the  bosses  that  they  had  made  a  mis- 
take. He  hurried  to  the  office,  called  in  the  Managing  Editor  and  asked 
him  what  editorial  he  had.  He  was  given  the  titles  of  several  stirring 
Republican  articles,  whooping  up  the  national  candidates.  "I  don't  want 
any  of  them,"  was  the  abrupt  comment.  "Have  you  nothing  else?" 
"Absolutely  nothing,"  was  the  reply.  As  no  explanation  was  made,  the 
Managing  Editor  ventured  to  lighten  the  gloom  occasioned  by  the  prospect 
of  being  called  upon  to  produce  a  couple  of  columns  of  editorial  at  mid- 
night by  a  joke.  The  Chronicle  at  the  time  had  a  special  writer  on 
agricultural  subjects  who  lived  in  the  country,  and  a  batch  of  his  matter 
had  just  been  received  by  mail.  It  was  usually  redolent  of  the  soil  and 
ponderously  technical,  for  he  was  a  real  farmer,  so  the  M.  E.  supplemented 
his  statement  that  there  was  nothing  with  the  information  that  he  had  "Stock- 
ton's manure,"  the  name  by  which  the  ribald  compositor  designated  Mr. 
Stockton's  contribution.  "Just  the  thing,"  said  Mr.  de  Young,  slapping 
his  thigh.  And  the  next  morning  The  Chronicle  appeared  with  a  learned 
discussion  of  different  brands  of  fertilizers,  an  eloquent  appeal  to  plow 
deeply,  and  other  abstruse  comment,  but  not  a  word  of  politics.  The 
hint  was  taken,  and  the  objectionable  impossibles  were  taken  off  the 
ticket. 

Perhaps  the  political  fortunes  of  the  men  who  dragged  The  Chronicle 
to  Placerville  would  have  been  better  served  if  its  proprietors  had  been 
acquitted.  But  they  were  insistent  upon  a  second  trial,  and  that  forced  the 
paper  to  exert  itself  to  the  utmost  to  fortify  the  charges  made  by  Pinney, 
for  there  were  signs  that  he  had  accomplished  his  purpose  and  that  some 
sort  of  an  understanding  had  been  reached  with  those  with  whom  he  had 


The   Chronicle   Assails   Corruption  89 

been  at  variance.     When  first  on  the  stand  Pinney  told  a  straightforward 
story  and  showed  a  marvelous  memory  for  dates  and  minute  occurrences; 
when  testifying  at  the  second  trial  he  developed  as  great  a 
Loses^  capacity  for  forgetting  as  he  had  had  earlier  for  remember- 

His  i^igj  3iid  The  Chronicle  was  nearly  put  in  the  awkward  posi- 

MemoTj  tion  of  discrediting  its  chief  witness.    Nevertheless,  the  prose- 

cutioii  failed,  the  jury  disagreeing,  as  in  the  first  case.  It  is 
impossible  to  tell  just  what  influences  were  used  to  "pull  dow^i"  Pinney, 
but  a  guess  may  be  ventured  that  it  was  in  some  way  connected  with  the 
fact  that  civil  suits  were  instituted  by  the  banks  that  had  accommodated 
him  when  he  was  dealing  in  stocks.  It  was  a  forlorn  hope,  but  their  man- 
agers evidently  believed  that  Pinney,  if  pressed,  would  present  evidence 
which  would  connect  solvent  persons  with  his  transactions.  The  attempt 
failed,  however,  but  it  succeeded  in  depriving  The  Chronicle  of  its  chief 
witness.  He  went  back  on  his  word,  and  struck  hands  with  the  men  on 
whom  he  had  "peached." 

The  banks  never  recovered  a  cent  from  Pinney  or  his  partners.     The 
paper  on  which  they  had  loaned  so  freely  was  worthless,  but  it  was  so 
cunningly  devised  that  it  might  have  deceived  men  more  cautious  than  San 
Francisco   bankers   were  durin.q-  the   seventies.      It  had   the 
B  nks^  sanction  of  the   Secretary  of  the   Navy  and  was  known  as 

Are  Navy  pay  certificates.     This   designation  sounded  well,  for 

Wrecked  the  certificates  plainly  recited  that  the  amounts  they  repre- 

sented would  be  paid  when  funds  should  be  available.  They 
purported  to  be  issued  to  the  contractors  Montaigne,  Hanscom  and  Jordan, 
but  whether  the  latter  were  always  cognizant  of  the  use  of  their  names  has 
not  been  divulged.  The  mess  was  too  nasty  to  be  stirred  up  much,  and 
the  civil  suits  were  not  pushed  and  were  finally  sidetracked.  The  banks 
most  seriously  involved  were  the  Saving  and  Loan  Society  and  the  Masonic 
Bank,  the  two  holding  Pinney's  notes  secured  by  the  "fake"  certificates  to 
the  amount  of  half  a  million  dollars.  Pinney's  exposure  and  the  vigorous 
demands  of  The  Chronicle  for  a  better  system  of  bank  examination  resulted 
in  the  creation  of  a  commission  by  the  Legislature  of  1877-78,  which  did 
some  effective  work.  Its  inquiries  divulged  the  extreme  weakness  of  several 
banks,  whose  doors  were  closed  by  the  Commissioners. 

Prior  to  the  creation  of  this  Bank  Commission,  there  was  absolutely 
no  public  supervision  of  the  affairs  of  California  financial  institutions.    The 
law  required  that  reports  should  be  made  at  regular  intervals,  but  there 
was  no  one  to  challenge  their  accuracy,  and  depositors  \vere 
^°  in  the  dark  respecting  the  real  status  of  the  institutions  to 

Supervision       which  they  entrusted  their  money.    They  were  called  upon  to 
of  Banks  exhibit  a  degree  of  confidence  which  would  be  regarded  as 

amazing  nowadays.  The  Bank  Commission  act  of  1877-78, 
however,  was  only  a  half-way  reform,  because  of  the  parsimony  of  the 
Legislature,  which  refused  to  make  adequate  provision  for  clerical  services, 
and,  as  this  narrative  progresses,  it  wall  be  seen  that  the  same  fault  was 
responsible  for  the  failure  of  a  provision  of  the  Constitution  of  1879  to 
anticipate  the  regulative  activities  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission. 
The  people  saw  clearly  the  necessity  for  the  application  of  restraining 
measures  to  curb  the  rapacity  of  the  transportation  corporations,  and 
created  a  body  and  gave  it  ample  powers  to  carry  out  the  popular  will; 


90 


Journalism  in  California 


but,  as  soon  as  they  had  aeconii)lished  that  much,  they  ceased  their  efforts, 
elected  men  to  the  LegisUiture  who  were  obedient  servants  of  the  railroad 
and  accepted  as  Railroad  Commissioners  and  members  of  the  Board  of 
Equalization  men  practically  nominated  by  organizations  who  were  to  be 
subjected  to  their  surveillance. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE   CHEONICLE'S   SUCCESSFUL   FIGHT   FOR 
THE   CONSTITUTION   OF   1879. 

A  Misrepresented  Organic  Law — Assaults  on  tlie  Men  Who  Framed  It — The  Un- 
reasoning Fears  and  Unscrupulous  Methods  of  Its  Opponents — The  Chronicle 's 
Vigorous  Fight  for  the  Instrument — Big  Sums  of  Money  Expended  to  Beat 
the  New  Organic  Law — Fruitless  Efforts  to  Muzzle  The  Chronicle — Threats  of 
Withdrawal  of  Patronage  Fail  to  Intimidate — The  Charge  That  It  Was  a  Sand- 
Lot  Instrument  Refuted — Framed  by  the  Best  Legal  Talent  of  California — - 
The  Chronicle 's  Defeni-e  of  the  Freedom  of  the  Press — Composition  of  the 
Constitutional  Convention — A  Thoroughly  Discussed  Document — Settling  a  Ques- 
tion of  Newspaper  Makeup — Meetings  Organized  by  M.  H.  de  Young — A  Big 
Meeting  in  the  Mechanics '  Pavilion — Victory  Celebrated  by  Fireworks. 


HERE  probably  never  was  a  more  misrepresented  and 
misunderstood  political  instrument  than  the  Consti- 
tution adopted  by  the  people  of  California  on  the  7th  of 
May,  187!).  Embracing,  as  it  did,  nearly  every  reform, 
the  American  people  are  now  seeking  to  bring  about,  it 
was  denounced  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of 
the  land  as  a  mob-inspired  monstrosity,  and  for  many 
years  was  held  up  as  an  awful  example  of  what  can  be 
accomplished  by  agitators  when  the  electorate  cuts  loose  from  "born" 
leaders  and  tries  to  make  laws  for  itself.  It  would  seem  impossible  that 
men  and  their  work  could  be  as  wantonly  libeled  as  were  the  framers  of 
the  Constitution  of  1879,  and  the  product  of  their  long  and  arduous 
labors,  in  these  days  when  printer's  ink  makes  it  possible  easily  to  ascertain 
the  facts  concerning  any  event  of  enough  consequence  to  be  fully  reported, 
but  it  was  chiefly  because  so  much  attention  was  devoted  to  the  instrument 
by  the  newspapers  that  the  truth  al)Out  it  was  obscured.  There  was  so 
much  evidence  that  men  shrunk  from  studying  it.  Even  a  historian  of 
the  standing  of  Bryce,  confessed,  in  acknowledging  a  blunder  committed  by 
him  in  discussing  the  subject,  that  lie  had  neglected  to  examine  the  only 
evidence  available — that  contained  in  the  files  of  contemporary  newspapers 
— because  to  have  done  so  would  have  consumed  too  much  of  his  valuable 
time. 

It  is  now  indisputable  that  the  allegations  made  when  the  uproar 
against  the  sand  lot  was  loudest  were  false,  and  that  the  men  who  opposed 
the  adoption  of  the  instrument  did  so  because  in  most  cases  they  were  the 
victims  of  an  unreasoning  fear  that  an  attempt  to  curb  the  aggressions  of 
corporations  would  prove  destructive  to  business.    This  was  the  view  taken 

91 


02  Journalism  in  California 

by  the  representatives  of  all  the  "interests,"  whose  members  organized 
themselves  for  the  purpose  of  fighting  the  instrument  and  raised  a  large 
sum  of  money,  which,  in  a  spirit  of  braggadocio,  they  declared  was  big 
enough  utterly  to  wipe  out  the  agrarian  and  socialistic  spirit 
Victims  which  they  said  was  halting  the  progress  of  California  and 

Unreasoning     driving  capital  from  the  State.     The  sum  commonly  named 
Fear  as  being  at  the  command  of  those  conducting  the  campaign 

against  the  "'new"  Constitution  was  $750,000,  and  the  proba- 
bilities favor  the  belief  that  the  amount  was  not  greatly  exaggerated.  It 
was  used  to  hire  halls  and  speakers  and  to  buy  space  in  newspapers.  Every 
journal  in  San  Francisco  but  one  was  secured  for  the  work  of  assault,  and 
while  the  opinions  of  the  editors  may  have  been  honestly  expressed,  it  is 
nevertheless  true  that  they  temporarily  profited  by  turning  over  a  large 
part  of  their  papers  to  the  bureau  for  a  consideration. 

The  one  paper  which  advocated  the  adoption  of  the  instrument  was  the 
San  Francisco  Chronicle.  Undeterred  by  menaces,  and  unmoved  by 
promises,  it  took  on  its  shoulders  the  herculean  task  of  answering  all  the 
arguments  and  misrepresentations  directed  against  the  instru- 
Job^Unde?'^^  ment  by  all  the  so-called  "leading"  journals  of  the  State.  It 
taken  by  ^^''^s  a  stupendous  job  and  at  the  outset  it  practically  had  no 

The  Chronicle  support,  but,  as  the  campaign  advanced  and  the  people  be- 
came aroused,  the  paper  succeeded  in  securing  assistance, 
for  it  also  found  it  necessary  to  effect  an  organization,  hire  halls  and  induce 
speakers  to  lay  before  voters  the  arguments  in  favor  of  the  adoption  of 
the  new  organic  law.  The  financing  of  the  movement  for  adoption  was 
wholly  assumed  by  Charles  and  M.  H.  de  Young  and  backed  by  the  re- 
sources of  their  paper,  the  San  Francisco  Chronicle.  Its  efforts  were  some 
times  referred  to  derisively,  but  it  was  impossible  to  charge  that  it  was 
helped  by  the  "interests,"  for  they  were  all  on  the  other  side.  The  only 
support  received  was  that  which  the  people  gave,  but  in  the  end  it  proved 
more  profitable  than  that  accepted  by  the  other  papers  from  the  railroad, 
the  insurance  companies,  the  banks,  the  gas  companies,  the  water  company 
and  practically  every  capitalist,  merchant  and  business  man  of  consequence 
in  tlie  city,  who  were  all  lined  u)>  against  the  instrument. 

It  was  a  trying  decision  for  the  two  brothers  de  Young  to  make,  and 
there  was  more  than  one  conference  before  it  was  reached.     Virtually  to 
assume  an  attitude  of  opposition  toward  the  elements  of  a  community  from 
which  a  newspaper  derives  the  main  part  of  its  direct  support 
Muzzle  required  nerve.  Under  ordinary  circumstances,  the  business 

The  '  P^rt  of  a  community  does  not  seek  to  interfere  even  remotely 

Chronicle  with   the   policy   of  a   newspaper.     Only  two  such  blunders 

have  been  made  in  Califoriiia.  The  first  was  when  the  Vigi- 
lantes attempted  to  drive  the  Herald  out  of  business  in  1856,  an  act 
which  the  sagacious  leader,  William  T.  Coleman,  condemned,  and  that 
of  1879,  when  pressure  was  exerted  on  advertisers  to  induce  them  to  with- 
draw their  patronage  from  The  Chronicle.  The  first  effort  was  practically 
successful,  for  the  Herald  died  a  lingering  death.  That  directed  against 
The  Chronicle  had  a  different  outcome.  When  intelligence  was  brought 
to  its  proprietors  by  patrons  who  objected  to  underhand  methods,  that  a 
committee  of  women,  headed  by  the  wife  of  a  prominent  railroad  official, 
was  threatening  withdrawal  of  patronage  from  merchants  advertieing  in 


DENNIS   KEARNEY 
The  Sand  Lot  agitator  of  the  seventies. 


Successful  Political  Fight  93 

The  Chronicle,  the  bold  announcement  was  made  that  The  Chronicle  pro- 
posed to  discuss  the  Constitution  on  its  merits,  and  that  if  any  attempt  was 
made  to  interfere  with  it  doing  so,  it  would  resent  it,  or,  to  put  it  plainly, 
if  it  was  struck  it  would  strike  back  with  all  the  vigor  at  its  command. 

The   intimation   sufficed ;   the    intimidating   committee   was   called   off 
and  during  the  remainder  of  the  campaign  the  bureau  trusted  to  defama- 
tion and  such  arguments  as  it  could  advance  to  encompass  the  defeat  of  the 
instrument.     The  silly  lie  most  persistently  iterated  was  that 
Not  a^  which  .misled  the  East  and  caused   it  to  condemn  the  pro- 

Sand-Lot  posed  organic  law  without  giving  it  so  much  as  cursory  atten- 

Instrument  tion.  That  any  Eastern  editor  who  denounced  it  as  a  sand- 
lot  document  ever  read  it  through  is  inconceivable.  The  com- 
ment in  the  most  prominent  journals  was  silly  twaddle,  and  could  all  be 
boiled  down  into  a  declaration  of  belief  that  the  mob  had  taken  possession 
of  California.  The  Eastern  press  simply  accepted  the  accusations  of  the 
bureau  formed  by  the  interests  as  facts.  That  they  should  have  done  so 
is,  perhaps,  not  surprising,  for  the  weight  of  so-called  respectability  was  in 
the  scales  against  aspirations  for  reform ;  but  it  is  cause  for  wonder  that  an 
investigator  of  the  standing  of  the  author  of  the  American  Commonwealth 
should  have  accepted  statements  so  easily  disproved. 

The  Constitution  of  1879  was  not  the  product  of  the  sand  lot;  it  was 
framed  by  the  best  legal  talent  of  the  State,  and  it  voiced  the  demand  of 
the  people  for  a  system  of  taxation  which  would  destroy  the  tendency  to 
hold  immense  tracts  of  land  in  the  ownership  of  single  in- 
bv  ^e  dividuals,  and  responded  to  the  urgent  need  for  the  regula- 

Best  Legal  ^ion  of  transportation  and  other  corporations.  The  move- 
Talent  ment  in  favor  of  holding  a  convention  was  started  years  be- 
fore the  name  of  Denis  Kearney  became  known  and  before  the 
sand  lot  was  used  as  a  meeting  place.  On  the  night  of  September  7,  1877, 
Kearney  made  a  speech  in  Dashaway  Hall  and  announced  that  a  meeting 
would  be  held  on  the  lot  in  front  of  the  City  Hall,  then  in  process  of  con- 
struction, on  the  following  Sunday.  But  two  years  earlier  resolutions  had 
been  adopted  by  the  Senate  and  Assembly  of  the  Legislature  of  1875-76 
denouncing  land  monopoly,  and,  on  the  3d  of  April,  1876,  an  act  was 
passed  authorizing  the  submission  to  the  people  of  a  proposal  to  hold  a 
Constitutional  Convention.  The  election  was  held  on  the  5th  of  September, 
1877,  and  the  proposal  was  carried  by  a  vote  of  73,460  in  favor,  41,200 
voting  against.  In  conformity  with  the  provision  of  the  existing  Constitu- 
tion, the  Legislature  of  1877-78  passed  an  act  calling  the  convention  and 
ordering  an  election  of  delegates,  which' was  held  on  June  19,  1878. 

Bryce's  indictment  of  California  Legislatures,  that  they  were  composed 
of  mediocre  men  and  were  hopelessly  inefficient  and  often  extremely  cor- 
rupt, while  in  the  main  correct,  did  not  accurately  describe  the  body  which 
assembled  in  December,  1877.    The  session  was  productive  of 
^  .  several  reform  measures,  and  members  seemed  animated  by  a 

Legislature  desire  to  remedy  land  abuses.  It  is  true  that  many  were 
under  the  domination  of  the  railroad,  but  there  was  a  vigorous 
opposition  to  the  attempt  of  Stanford,  who  personally  super- 
vised the  operations  of  a  lobby  which  sought  to  put  through  legislation  de- 
sired by  the  railroad.  It  was  at  this  session  that  Grove  L.  Johnson,  the 
father  of  Hiram,  introduced  an  act  in  the  Assembly  which  had  for  its 


94  Journalism  in  California 

object  the  muzzling  of  the  press.  It  was  known  as  the  retraction  law,  and 
was  justly  suspected  of  being  inspired  by  the  desire  to  gag  The  Chronicle, 
.whose  course  had  made  it  obnoxious  to  the  interests  and  especially  to  the 
Central  Pacific  managers.  The  Chronicle  defended  the  freedom  of  the 
press  with  its  characteristic  vigor,  and  succeeded  in  beating  the  measure  in 
the  House,  in  which  it  originated.  It  followed  up  its  victory  by  an  assault 
on  the  privilege  which  rascals  had  thitherto  enjoyed  of  persuading  Grand 
Juries  in  several  counties  to  bring  indictments  simultaneously  against  pub- 
lishers of  newspapers,  and  had  placed  on  the  statute  books  a  law  which 
limited  the  place  of  action  to  one  county  only.  This  principle  was  sub- 
sequently embodied  in  the  Constitution  of  1879,  which  recites  that  "indict- 
ments found,  or  information  laid,  for  publication  in  newspapers,  shall  be 
tried  in  the  county  where  such  newspapers  have  their  publication  office,  or 
in  the  county  where  the  party  alleged  to  be  libeled  resided  at  the  time  of 
the  alleged  publication,  unless  the  place  of  trial  shall  be  changed  for  good 
cause." 

The  convention  finished  its  work  on  the  3d  of  March,  1879,  and  the 
Constitution  was  submitted  as  a  whole  to  the  electorate  of  the  State  on 
May   7,    1879.      It  was   printed   in   its   entirety   in  the   newpapers,   and 

during  the  sixty-five  days  between  its  submission  and  the 
Thorouehlv  election  it  received  a  more  thorough  discussion  than  any 
Discussed  document  ever  submitted  to  the  voters  of  this  country.    There 

Document  were  some  of  its  provisions  that  received  more  attention  than 

others,  but  none  was  ignored.  When  The  Chronicle  went 
into  the  contest,  it  did  so  with  the  intention  of  winning.  The  de  Youngs 
were  satisfied  that  it  embodied  the  principal  reforms  for  which  they  had 
contended  when  they  decided  upon  advocating  its  adoption.  If  they  had 
had  any  doubts  on  the  subject  they  would  have  been  speedily  resolved  by  the 
action  of  the  combined  interests  in  forming  a  bureau  equipped  with 
$750,000  to  beat  the  new  Constit\ition.  They  had  an  uphill  job  before 
them,  but  they  never  faltered.  Day  after  day  their  paper  discussed  every 
phase  of  the  rather  voluminous  instrument.  Column  upon  column  was  de- 
voted to  argument  and  the  editorial  rooms  were  converted  into  a  bureau  of 
information.  It  was  no  unusual  thing  during  the  noon  hour  for  men  to 
abridge  their  lunch  for  the  purpose  of  having  some  moot  point  resolved  by 
the  editor  in  order  that  they  might  successfully  controvert  an  argument 
advanced  by  an  antagonist. 

Never  was  a  paper  so  completely  engrossed  by  one  subject  as  The 
Chronicle  was  during  the  sixty-five  days  between  March  3d  and  May  7th, 
1879.     An  article  written  by  one  of  the  editors,  captioned,  "One  Hundred 

and  One  Eeasons  Why  the  New  Constitution  Should  Be 
^       .      .  Adopted,"  was  submitted  to  Charles  de  Young,  who  directed 

Engrossed         ^1''^^  it  be  used  the  next  morning.     The  pressure  of  other 
Paper  matter  was  so  great  the  editor  concluded  that  it  could  be  held 

over  until  the  following  day.  About  midnight  Mr.  do  Young 
appeared  in  the  office  and  asked  what  position  had  been  given  the  101  article. 
He  was  told  that  it  had  been  crowded  out.  "It  must  go,"  he  repeated. 
"Come  and  show  me  where  to  put  it,"  demanded  the  editor  who  added 
that  there  were  already  some  thirteen  columns  of  new  Constitution  matter 
in  the  paper  and  little  else  but  advertisements.  They  adjourned  to  the 
composition  room  and  inspected  the  forms.     It  was  a  hard  problem  he  was 


Successful  Political  Fight  95 

called  upon  to  solve,  but  the  solution  came  promptly.  "Take  out  this, 
and  this,  and  this,"  he  said,  rapidly  indicating  a  number  of  features  on 
the  last  page;  and  the  next  morning  The  Chronicle  appeared  minus  the 
bulk  of  its  commercial  matter.  "They  won't  miss  it,"  he  remarked,  "they 
(the  public)  are  thinking  too  much  about  beating  us  to  pay  much  attention 
to  markets  and  stocks."  His  brother,  M.  H.  de  Young,  was  called  upon  to 
display  equal  energy  in  another  field.  On  him  devolved  the  work  of  or- 
ganizing meetings  and  securing  meeting  places,  in  the  city  and  elsewhere. 
The  task  was  not  a  light  one.  The  bureau  of  the  interests  early  in  the 
discussion  deliberately  hired  every  obtainable  hall  for  the  purpose  of  shut- 
ing  out  the  advocates  of  the  new  Constitution.  They  forgot  the  Mechanics' 
Pavilion,  Mr.  de  Young  secured  it,  and  the  biggest  indoor  meeting  ever 
convened  in  California  was  held  under  its  roof.  The  floor  area  was  so 
large  that  there  were  practically  three  meetings  in  full  blast  at  once,  there 
being  enough  speakers  to  go  around. 

When  the  morning  of  May  7th  arrived,  M.  H.  de  Young  was  so  con- 
fident of  success  he  laid  in  a  stock  of  fireworks  for  the  purpose  of  celebrat- 
ing the  victory.  There  being  but  one  proposition,  the  vote  was  easily  and 
quickly  counted,  and  tlie  night  was  still  young  when  bombs, 
^^"^iT^d^^  skyrockets,  roman  candles  and  red  fire  announced  to  the 
fQj  people  of  San  Francisco  that  the  new  Constitution  had  been 

Victory  adopted  by  a  decisive  majority.     The  vote  was  an  unusually 

full  one,  145,093  out  of  a  total  of  161,000  qualified  electors 
casting  their  ballots.  When  the  vote  was  finally  canvassed,  it  was  learned 
that  the  instrument  had  been  adopted  by  a  majority  of  10,825.  Words 
cannot  describe  the  disappointment  and  chagrin  of  the  men  operating  the 
bureau.  They  had  derided  the  infiuence  of  The  Chronicle  and  laughed  at 
its  predictions  of  success.  They  did  not  realize  that,  for  the  time  at  least, 
the  people  of  California  w^ere  bent  on  securing  the  reforms  which  the  new 
Constitution  promised  them.  Their  astonishment  was  so  great  that  they 
forgot  that  in  denouncing  The  Chronicle  for  bringing  about  the  result 
they  were  paying  the  paper  an  unequivocal  compliment,  which  it  deserved, 
and  that  at  the  same  time  they  were  advertising  the  fact  that  its  rivals  were 
destitute  of  real  influence. 

The  Constitution  of  1879  deserved  the  support  which  the  people  gave 
it,  for  it  provided  the  means  to  effect  every  reform  demanded  by  them.  It 
created  a  Eailroad  Commission  with  powers  as  plenary  as  those  conferred 
upon  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  by  Congress,  or 
Constitution  |^y  ^j^^  ^^^^  which  now  effectively  restrains  the  transportation 
Support  companies  of  the  State.    It  created  a  State  Board  of  Equal  i- 

It  Received  zation  which,  had  not  a  corrupt  court  deliberately  misinter- 
preted the  provisions  of  the  article  creating  it,  must  have 
completely  eradicated  the  practice  of  favoring  large  landowners  at  the 
expense  of  the  general  taxpayer,  and  which,  even  after  its  emasculation, 
sufficed  to  remove  the  chief  abuses  which  raised  the  cry  of  unequal  taxation 
and  made  the  growth  of  land  monopoly  impossible.  The  adoption  of  the 
Constitution  of  1879  was  followed  by  the  cry  that  it  was  driving  capital 
out  of  the  State.  It  is  true  that  some  owners  of  money  left  California,  but 
they  were  chiefly  of  the  sort  the  State  was  well  rid  of,  and,  besides,  they 
had  milked  the  kind  of  people  upon  whom  they  preyed  dry.  Their  de- 
parture was  so  speedily  followed  by  an  era  of  prosperity  that  a  careless 


96 


Journalism  in  California 


writer  might  easily  fall  into  the  hluntler  of  assuming  that  their  exit  had 
something  to  do  with  the  change  for  the  better,  if  he  were  not  warned  that 
the  true  cause  was  the  sudden  awakening  to  the  fact  that  it  pays  a  people 
better  to  devote  their  energies  to  the  development  of  resources  than  it  does 
to  speculate  or  sit  in  a  game  with  men  who  hold  marked  cards. 


CHAPTER    XIII 

OLD-FASHIONED    METHODS    OF    NEWSPAPERING 
DISAPPEARING. 


Journalistic  Progress  in  San  Francisco — History  in  Outline — Appearance  of  News- 
papers During  the  Seventies — Breaking  Away  From  Conventionalized  Methods — 
San  Francisco's  First  Eight-Page  Paper — An  Old-Time  Supplement — News- 
paper Offices  on  Side  Streets — Publication  Center  in  Unsavory  Quarters — 
The  Chronicle 's  Bold  Move  to  Kearny  Street — First  San  Francisco  Newspaper 
to  Have  a  Eeal  Home  of  Its  Own — Newspapers  That  Lacked  Confidence  in  the 
Future — Changes  in  Ownership  of  Papers — The  Bulletin  and  Call  Under  Picker- 
ing, Fitch  and  Simonton — Printing  on  a  Hand-Fed  Press — Highly-Paid  Hand 
Composition — Newspaper  Career  of  Henry  George — Eobert  Louis  Stevenson  and 
the  Newspapers — Bryce's  Opinion  of  The  Chronicle — Writers  With  Imagina- 
tion— The  Pioneer  Sunday  Magazine  of  the  Daily  Press  of  America — Reporting 
Sports  and  Sport  News — San  Francisco's  First  Sporting  Editor — Newspaper 
Staffs  Eecruited  From  the  Pulpit,  the  Schoolroom  and  the  Bar — The  Chronicle 
a  Training  School — Expounders  of  "Sound"  Democratic  Doctrine — Founding 
of  the  Argonaut — The  News  Letter  and  Its  Writers — Samuel  Seabough  a 
Forceful  Editorial  Writer — Boosting  a  Senatorial  Candidate  and  Its  Results — 
The  Chronicle  Gets  a  New  Managing  Editor. 

NE  swallow  does  not  make  a  summer,  nor  does  the  recital 
of  a  single  episode  in  the  career  of  a  great  journal  con- 
vey to  the  reader  an  accurate  impression  of  the  steps  by 
which  it  reached  the  position  and  influence  that  en- 
abled it  to  make  an  almost  single-handed  fight  against 
the  combined  interests  of  California.  Neither  is  it 
possible  by  reviewing  the  growth  of  a  single  paper  to 
tell  a  story  complete  in  all  of  its  details  of  the  progress 
of  journalism  in  San  Francisco.  That  could  be  done  only  by  following  the 
course  of  each  journal  from  the  date  of  its  first  issue  down  to  the  present 
time,  an  almost  impossible  feat,  even  if  its  performance  were  desirable.  It 
is  feasible,  however,  to  give  the  reader  a  tolerably  comprehensive  idea  of 
the  expansion  of  the  modern  newspaper  by  using  the  career  of  a  typical 
journal  as  an  illustration  of  the  processes  by  which  distinction  is  achieved 
and  a  place  won  among  the  great  publications  of  the  world.  The  Clironicle 
may  fairly  be  placed  in  this  class,  and  the  description  of  its  exploits  and 
growth,  even  when  the  connection  between  them  and  the  development  of 
the  city  in  which  it  is  published  is  not  always  perfectly  clear,  will  coiivey 
to  the  acute  reader  a  distinct  impression  of  the  causes  that  contributed  to 
the  alternations  of  prosperity  and  adversity  of  the  community. 

But  there  is  much  in  the  story  of  the  growth  of  a  newspaper  such  as 
The  Chronicle  that  is  so  closely  linked  up  with  the  history  of  the  city  that 

97 


98  Journalism  in  California 

its  narration  must  bear  some  resemblance  to  historical  writing.     In  the 
nature  of  things,  however,  the  picture  must  be  a  mere  outline,  for  events 

will  be  referred  to  which  when  they  occurred  occupied  col- 
^^istory  umns  and  pages  in  the  recital  of  their  details,  but  which  must 

Outline  ^^  dismissed  with  a  few  lines,  even  when  the  more  important 

happenings  have  been  culled  from  the  vast  number  recorded 

during  the  fifty  years  since  the  birth  of  the  paper.  There  will 
also  be  descriptions  in  such  a  narration  of  innovations  in  journalism  made 
from  time  to  time  during  the  past  fifty  years  which  will  be  recognized  by 
those  in  the  profession  as  part  of  the  exjierience  of  every  growing  news- 
paper, and  some  for  which  the  claim  will  be  made  that  The  Chronicle  was 
the  first  to  institute  them.  Whenever  such  a  claim  is  made,  it  will  be  ac- 
companied by  corroborative  dates,  and  the  reason  for  assuming  priority 
will  be  given. 

In  an  earlier  chapter,  the  appearance  of  the  daily  San  Francisco  papers 
was  described  as  very  conventional.  Those  in  the  business  saw  peculiarities 
in  their  publications,  but  to  the  average  reader,  excepting  so  far  as  size 

differentiated  them,  the  various  sheets  must  have  looked  very 
Looked  much   alike.     They  used  type  of   the   same   sort,  and  the 

Much  distaste  for  display  was  shared  by  all.     They  were  not  as 

Alike  fearful  of  telling  in  head  lines  the  contents  of  articles  as  the 

Philadelphia  Ledger,  which  during  the  Civil  War  occasionally 
headed  a  bit  of  startling  intelligence,  "Important,  If  True,"  and  let  it  go 
at  that;  but  they  were  very  chary  of  repetition,  and  assumed  that  people 
who  bought  papers  did  so  to  read  what  was  printed  in  them,  and  that  it 
was  entirely  superfluous  to  tell  the  story  twice.  Perhaps  the  fact  that  it 
was  a  less  busy  age  than  the  present  accounted  for  the  absence  of  detail 
in  heads,  but  it  is  more  than  likely  that  the  poverty  of  uncultivated  imagina- 
tion was  responsible  for  such  uninformative  heads  as  "Miscellaneous," 
"General  Xews,"  "Coast  Intelligence,"  "Eastern  Telegrams,"  and,  occa- 
sionally, the  very  interesting  announcement  "By  Wire,"  Avhich  was  evi- 
dently supposed  to  be  a  sufficient  voucher  that  what  followed  would  be 
worth  reading  and,  therefore,  "like  good  wine,  required  no  bush." 

The  Chronicle,  even  in  the  days  when  it  maintained  the  prefix  "Drama- 
tic," showed  a  disposition  to  break  away  from  the  very  serious  set  head  and 
tried  to  convey  an  idea  of  the  contents  of  an  item  in  its  caption.     The 

conundrum  habit  had  a  great  vogue  in  the  late  sixties,  and 
Breaking  during  the  seventies,  and  Avas  responsible  for  numerous  queer 

From  Old  heads  whose  meanings  are  difficult  to  guess  because  we  have 

Methods  lost  the  key  to  the  riddles.     There  was  also  a  pronounced 

tendency  to  add  piquancy  to  the  heading  of  an  item  l)y  using 
nicknames,  or  referring  to  eminent  citizens  as  Tom  This  or  Bill  That,  and 
the  modern  investigator  is  confronted  with  numerous  obscurities,  due  to 
the  use  of  slang  which  has  long  since  lost  its  familiarity.  But  these  were 
mere  verbal  departures.  The  form  of  the  head  Avas  regulated  and  as 
rigorously  adhered  to  as  the  laws  of  the  Medes  and  the  Persians.  The 
composition  room  may  have  had  something  to  do  with  this  adherence  to 
the  stereotyped  head,  but,  whatever  the  cause,  it  was  not  departed  from 
for  many  years,  and  when  a  departure  was  made  it  was  not  in  the  direction 
of  varying  the  type  as  is  now  the  practice  in  most  papers,  but  by  increasing 
the  number  of  lines  of  heading,  all  of  which  were  set  in  modest  type. 


m    §xmmco    Chi;oni(lc, 


TITLE    PAGE    OF    FIRST    EIGHT-PAGE    PAPER    PRINTED    IN 
SAN  FRANCISCO 


The   Pioneer   Sunday   Magazine  99 

On  December  19,  1869,  The  Chronicle  printed  an  eight-page  edition 
for  which  the  claim  was  made  that  it  was  the  largest  paper  ever  issued  in 
San  Francisco  up  to  that  date.  It  was  a  Sunday  issue  and  represented  a 
brave  attempt  to  anticipate  the  modern  Sunday  magazine. 
'Francisco's  Such  original  articles  as  it  contained  were  from  local  con- 
First  Eight-  tributors.  The  editor  of  those  days  was  working  in  a  re- 
Page  Paper  stricted  field.  The  number  of  trained  writers  was  relatively 
small  and  the  propensity  to  break  into  print  had  not  yet 
developed.  There  were  no  syndicates,  and  the  Eastern  press  was  not  very 
far  in  advance  of  that  of  the  West,  so  far  as  matter  of  a  real  or  near 
literary  character  was  concerned.  The  New  York  Ledger,  Street  and 
Smith's  Weekly,  Gleason's  Literary  Companion  and  "Dime  Novels"  were 
still  the  favorite  literary  pabulum  on  the  other  side  of  the  Eockies,  and  the 
California  editor  who  sought  to  make  an  interesting  paper  with  a  pair  of 
scissors,  a  paste  pot  and  a  pile  of  Eastern  exchanges  had  a  hard  time  of  it, 
and  his  paper  exhibited  the  fact  plainly.  Some  time  in  the  late  sixties  the 
Evening  Bulletin  began  to  issue  a  two-page  supplement,  almost  wholly 
devoted  to  the  reproduction  of  matter  derived  from  other  papers.  It  usually 
started  a  page  with  a  short  story,  the  remainder  of  the  two  pages  being 
made  up  of  excerpts  from  magazines  and  reviews.  The  selections  were 
well  made  and  the  supplement  was  held  in  great  esteem  by  the  serious- 
minded,  who  found  plenty  of  good  information,  but  the  major  part  of  it 
was  from  European  publications. 

This  feature  of  the  Bulletin  was  maintained  until  the  sale  of  the  paper 
by  its  owner,  George  K.  Fitch,  and  a  copy  of  it  produced  in  1870  presented 
the  same  appearance,  typographically  and  otherwise  as  it  did  twenty-five 
years  later.  This  conservatism  exliibited  itself  as  well  in  the 
Newspaper  daily  Call,  edited  by  his  partner,  Loring  Pickering,  and  in 
on  Side  the  methods  of  the  two  editors  in  securing  the  results  at  which 

Streets  they  aimed.     The  Call  and  the  Bulletin  had  their  business 

offices  on  Montgomery  street,  and  their  mechanical  and 
editorial  rooms  were  on  Clay  street,  between  Montgomery  and  Sansome, 
a  neighborhood  much  affected  by  the  San  Francisco  press  until  1879,  when 
The  Chronicle  occupied  its  new  building  on  the  corner  of  Kearny  and 
Bush  streets.  There  was  nothing  pretentious  about  the  quarters  of  the 
two  publications  of  Messrs.  Pickering  and  Fitch.  Clay  street,  in  that  por- 
tion in  which  the  newspapers  had  established  their  mechanical  and  editorial 
departments  had  long  been  favored  by  vegetable  and  poultry  dealers,  and 
there  was  a  particularly  unsavory  market  in  the  block  between  Montgomery 
and  Sansome.  Only  the  careful  observer  passing  along  the  narrow  thor- 
oughfare would  note  the  modest  sign  in  a  dingy  hallway  bearing  the  simple 
legend  "Editorial  Booms."  This  brief  announcement  sufficed  to  discover 
to  the  seeker  where  three  of  the  leading  morning  papers  were  made.  The 
Alta,  which  still  flourished  throughout  the  seventies,  did  not  divorce  its 
publication  office  from  its  printing  department  and  editorial  rooms,  but 
so  far  as  advertising  itself  was  concerned,  it  did  not  make  a  much  braver 
showing  in  its  California-street  quarters  than  its  rivals,  and,  like  them, 
it  enjoyed  the  odors  of  a  near-by  general  market. 

This  retiring  disposition  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  until  Mr.  de 
Young  made  his  bold  move  of  constructing  a  building  especially  adapted 
to  the  needs  of  a  newspaper,  publishers  seemed  to  be  possessed  of  the  idea 


100  Journalism  in  California 

that  aii}^  makeshift  place  woukl  serve  the  purpose  of  getting  out  a  daily 
paper,  and,  considering  all  the  circumstances,  they  were  justified  in  the 

assumption,  for  the  making  of  a  newspaper  during  the  years 
Afraid*^^'^^  prior  to  the  opening  of  the  decade  1880-90  was  a  compara- 
of  the  tively  simple  affair,  and  publishers  catered  for  a  not  very  ex- 

Future  acting  public,  or  at  least  one  which  had  not  accpiircd  the  idea 

that  innovation  stood  for  improvement.  The  printers  who 
started  the  Morning  Call  in  1856  were  very  modest  in  their  aspirations. 
One  of  the  number,  who  subsequently  dropped  out  and  established  himself 
in  Victoria,  B.  Q\,  later  remarked  that  they  were  '"'men  who  put  on  no 
frills."  Their  object  was  to  print  a  newspaper  on  lines  familiar  to  them, 
and  it  is  probable  that  the  thought  that  tliere  might  be  a  great  change  in 
methods  never  occurred  to  them.  It  would  have  been  surprising  if  a  co- 
operative body,  made  up  of  men  with  scarcely  any  capital,  had  entertained 
a  more  ambitious  aim  than  to  make  a  living  out  of  their  venture. 

That,  indeed,  was  their  purpose,  a  fact  attested  by  the  ease  with  which 
they  were  induced  to  surrender  their  shares  when  they  received  what  they 
considered  good  offers  for  them.     In  1867  Pickering  began  to  acquire  an 

interest  in  the  Morning  Call,  and  in  the  course  of  a  couple  of 
Sf"san°"^  years  the  men  who  started  the  paper  had  disposed  of  their 
Francisco  entire  holdings  in  the  concern.    Pickering  had  been  associated 

Journalism        with  Fitch  as  early  as  1852  in  the  publication  of  a  paper  in 

Sacramento,  known  as  the  Times-Transcript,  which  was  later 
removed  to  San  Francisco,  when  the  glories  of  the  city  nearest  the  placer 
diggings  began  to  pale  before  the  rising  commercial  importance  of  the  port 
on  the  bay.  They  sold  the  Times  shortly  after  its  removal  to  San  Francisco 
and  bought  the  Alta  California,  which,  in  turn,  they  disposed  of  to  Fred- 
erick W.  McCrellish.  The  Alta  during  its  career  underwent  many  changes 
and  had  numerous  owners.  It  was  once  the  property  of  David  C.  Broder- 
ick,  who,  however,  only  maintained  his  interest  in  it  long  enough  to  carry 
through  some  of  his  political  undertakings.  Its  era  of  greatest  prosperity 
was  that  enjoyed  when  the  business  interests  of  the  city  withdrew  their 
patronage  from  the  Herald  in  1856  at  the  instance  of  the  Vigilance  Commit- 
tee. After  the  sale  of  the  Alta  to  McCrellish,  the  partnership  of  Pickering 
and  Fitch  was  severed  and  the  former  went  to  Europe,  where  he  spent 
several  years. 

When   Pickering  acquired  control  of  the   Morning   Call  the  old-time 
partnership  with  Fitch  was  resumed.    J.  W.  Simonton,  who  was  previously 
associated  with  them,  also  engaged  in  the  venture.     Most  of  the  time  of 
.  .  the  latter,  however,  was  spent  in  the  East  or  devoted  to  the 

of  the^^  Xew   York    Associated    Press,    one    of    the    numerous    news 

Bulletin  gathering  concerns  subsequently  amalgamated  into  a  national 

and  Call  association.     The  conduct  of  the  Bulletin,  which  ceased  to 

issue  a  morning  edition,  devolved  on  Fitch,  and  the  Call  was 
looked  after  specially  by  Pickering.  The  two  editors,  who  managed  to 
maintain  policies  which  may  have  appeared  divergent  to  the  uncritical  as  it 
was  disclosed  in  their  respective  papers,  were  really  very  harmonious  and 
understood  each  other  perfectly.  They  worked  in  the  same  room,  sitting  at 
desks  almost  side  by  side.  They  were  not  very  fastidious  concerning  their 
surroundings.  Ella  Sterling  Cummings,  in  her  "Story  of  the  Files,"  has 
given  us  a  description  of  the  sanctum.    It  was  an  inside  room,  lighted  by  a 


The  Pioneer  Sunday  Magazine  101 

skylight,  which,  on  the  occasion  of  her  visit,  was  in  such  a  leaky  condition 
that  a  puddle  of  water  stood  on  the  floor.  Their  quarters,  however,  were 
no  better  than  those  assigned  to  the  remainder  of  the  editorial  force ;  those 
occupied  by  the  compositors  were  far  superior,  for  they  boasted  light  and 
ventilation  from  the  noisome  street. 

The  Chronicle's  editorial  and  composition  rooms  were  situated  on  the 
same  side  of  Clay  street  and  resembled  in  a  general  way  those  of  its  two 
competitors,  for  the  rivalry  between  the  papers  at  that  time  was  not  confined 

to  the  morning  editions.  Like  the  Call's  editorial  rooms, 
Street  a  those  of  The  Chronicle  were  situated  in  the  rear  part  of  the 

Publication  second  floor,  light  and  air  being  reserved  for  the  compositors. 
Center  The  pressrooms  of  the  paper  were  on  the  ground  floor  of  the 

premises  in  the  rear  of  the  Clay-street  building,  and  opened 
out  on  Sacramento  street.  During  the  seventies.  The  Chronicle  was  using 
a  four-cylinder  press,  the  printing  for  a  considerable  period  being  from 
the  type  on  flat  sheets  of  paper,  which  were  folded  with  a  special  machine. 
Before  growing  circulation  had  suggested  to  The  Chronicle  proprietors  the 
desirability  of  the  perfecting  press  the  Call  had  installed  a  French  machine 
which  was  the  first  and  last  of  the  sort  brought  to  the  Coast,  and  was  one 
of  the  few  modern  presses  imported  into  the  United  States  from  Europe. 
The  possession  by  the  Call  of  this  fast  French  press  failed  to  have  the  effect 
which  the  installation  of  two  Hoe  perfecting  presses  by  The  Chronicle 
produced  a  few  years  later.  There  was  no  disposition  manifested  by  its 
owners  to  increase  the  size  of  their  issues,  and  the  Call  and  Bulletin  con- 
tinued to  be  put  forth  as  four-page  papers.  This  lack  of  enterprise  prac- 
tically put  The  Chronicle's  four-cylinder  press  in  the  running  and  per- 
mitted its  owners  to  turn  out  a  larger  edition  than  its  rivals.  But  while 
there  was  no  trouble  on  this  score  there  was  much  in  the  matter  of  time 
which  had  to  be  remedied  by  the  introduction  of  faster  machines  and  the 
stereotyping  process.  Before  that  was  resorted  to  columns  of  type  were  at- 
tached to  the  surface  of  a  rapidly  revolving  cylinder,  against  which  the 
sheets  of  paper  were  carried  on  impression  cylinders  to  the  surface  of  the 
revolving  cylinder,  the  feeding  being  done  by  hand.  The  process,  com- 
pared with  that  of  the  perfecting  press,  which  permits  the  use  of  an  indef- 
inite number  of  plates  produced  by  stereotyping  from  one  or  more  forms, 
seems  slow,  but  the  multiplication  of  cylinders  and  the  practices  of  printing 
four-page  papers  permitted  the  issuance  of  editions  which  seemed  numeri- 
cally formidable  in  those  days. 

The  type  was  all  set  by  hand,  and  the  price  of  composition,  like  that 
of  white  paper,  was  high.  In  the  closing  years  of  the  seventy  decade  San 
Francisco  printers  were  better  compensated  than  in  any  other  city  of  the 

Union,  excepting  Washington,  where  an  artificially  high  rate 
Pafd^'^'  ^^^  maintained  through  the  instrumentality  of  the  Govern- 

Hand  ment  Printing  Office.     The  price  per  thousand  ems  was  60 

Composition      cents,  and  this  fact  casts  doubt  on  the  assertion  made  in  one 

of  the  encyclopedias  that  Henry  George,  "although  of  un- 
usual intelligence  and  energy,"  found  great  difficulty  in  supporting  himself 
while  in  San  Francisco,  "and  was  often  reduced  to  extreme  want."  The 
statement  is  followed  by  the  explanation  that  "this  was  in  part  due  to  his 
uncompromising  hostility  to  the  all  powerful  railway  interests  and  to  other 
monopolies."    As  George  was  reputed  to  have  been  a  good  printer,  this  is 


102  Journalism  in  California 


obviously  a  mistake,  for  it  is  inconceivable  tliat  any  compositor  should  have 
been  reduced  to  want  in  San  Francisco  at  the  time.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
George  was  never  an  object  of  persecution,  as  has  been  represented,  nor  was 
his  hostility  to  the  railroad  of  a  character  calculated  to  provoke  reprisals. 
Had  there  been  any  such  feeling,  George  would  not  have  been  permitted 
to  enjoy  the  sinecure  of  the  gas  inspectorship  of  San  Francisco,  to  which  he 
was  a])]X)inted  by  a  Governor  by  no  means  unfriendly  to  the  railroad.  When 
the  fight  over  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  1879  was  in  progress, 
George  arrayed  himself  against  the  instrument  and  his  career  at  that  period 
was  not  marked  by  any  particular  devotion  to  the  objects  which  early  re- 
formers sought  to  achieve.  lie  certainly  was  completely  at  variance  with 
the  people  of  California  on  the  question  of  excluding  the  Chinese,  and  he 
appeared  to  believe  that  no  other  reform  was  desirable  excepting  the  de- 
struction of  land  monopoly.  His  proposed  remedy  to  abate  that  evil  did 
not  disturb  the  railroad  because  of  the  existing  arrangement  which  freed 
its  lands  from  taxation  until  they  were  patented. 

It  is  idle  to  speak  of  a  competent  reporter  or  compositor  suffering  want 
in  San  Francisco  during  the  seventies,  and  the  tales  that  Henry  George  met 
with  such  an  experience  in  this  city  must  be  regarded  as  pure  inventions. 

His  abilities  were  well  enough  known  to  enable  him  to  reach 
Newspaper  the  position  of  managing  editor  of  an  evening  paper  and  in 
Career  of  ^j^^^  capacity  be  made  his  mark  as  a  news  gatherer  and  the 

George  promoter  of  reforms.     He  had  been  recognized  as  a  capable 

writer  before  he  took  the  managing  editorship  of  the  Evening 
Post,  and,  doubtless,  could  have  obtained  a  remunerative  position  at  any 
time  after  leaving  that  paper  had  he  not  become  absorbed  in  his  project  of 
writing  a  book  which  had  for  its  purpose  the  destruction  of  land  monopoly. 
Instead  of  making  it  appear  that  the  literary  lines  of  George  were  made 
hard  in  San  Francisco,  the  fact  should  be  recognized  that  it  was  a  munici- 
pal salary  which  enabled  him  to  prosecute  his  great  work  in  comparative 
comfort.  The  George  story  is  matched  by  another  linked  up  with  the  his- 
tory of  San  Francisco  journalism  of  this  period,  which  represented  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson  as  being  employed  in  the  city  department  of  the  San 
Francisco  Chronicle  in  the  spring  of  1880,  and  that  he  performed  his 
work  "in  such  an  unsatisfactory  manner  that  the  item  he  was  assigned  to 
write  had  to  be  given  to  another  reporter  to  put  into  English  suitable  to 
the  readers  of  the  paper  and  the  latitude  of  California,"  and  that  later  "he 
continued  to  Avrite  articles  for  the  Sunday  edition  of  The  Chronicle,  but 
that  there  is  no  indication  that  he  thought  affectionately  of  them,  for  he 
never  rescued  them  from  the  files."  If  The  Chronicle  could  have  added  the 
name  of  Roliert  Louis  Stevenson  to  the  long  list  of  distinguished  authors 
who  contributed  to  its  columns  in  early  days  it  would  have  done  so 
cheerfully,  but  the  records  of  the  paper  were  carefully  examined  several 
years  before  the  fire,  and  his  name  was  not  found  on  any  pay  roll  during 
the  period  of  his  sojourn  in  California.  The  only  boast  the  paper  can 
make  in  connection  with  Stevenson's  work,  is  that  it  was  one  of  the  first 
journals  in  America  to  recognize  the  merits  of  his  writing,  as  Mr.  McClure, 
who  placed  one  of  the  author's  first  stories  with  The  Chronicle,  can 
testify. 

The  slur  contained  in  the  article  of  one  IT.  W.  Bell  in  the  Pall  Mall 
Gazette  which  sought  to  convey  the  impression  that  the  city  editor  of  The 


§"^«;'  •t\|.--V  r/.>.;S. 


HENRY   GEORGE 
Author  of  "Progress  and  Poverty.' 


il 


The  Pioneer  Sunday  Magazine  103 

Chronicle  in  1879  was  unable  to  recognize  good  English,  or  having  it 
offered  to  him  rejected  it,  is  amusing  in  view  of  the  testimony  of  another 
English  writer,  James  Bryce,  who  stated  in  his  "American  Commonwealth" 
that  at  this  particular  time  "the  activity  of  The  Chronicle 
Bryce 's  counted  for  much,  for  it  was  ably  written  and  went  every- 

of  The  where,"  and  that,  indeed,  was  the  case.     If  The  Chronicle 

Chronicle  had  a  distinguishing  characteristic  it  was  its  propensity  to 

get  away  from  the  dry-as-dust  methods  of  its  contemporaries, 
and  with  that  object  in  view  it  was  quick  to  engage  good  men  when  they 
presented  themselves.  It  is  true  that  the  comparatively  limited  space  neces- 
sitated brevity  of  treatment  in  dealing  with  ordinary  occurrences,  but  it  is 
astonishing  to  note  in  running  through  the  files  how  often  room  was  made 
for  a  bit  of  imaginative  writing  at  the  expense  of  crowded-out  local.  A 
case  of  this  kind  was  presented  when  some  reporter  was  permitted  to  de- 
scribe the  exploits  of  a  flying  shijD  which  made  regular  trips  between  San 
Francisco  and  China,  consuming  only  three  or  four  days  in  +he  passage. 
The  writer  located  the  station  for  arrivals  and  departures  on  the  corner  of 
Montgomery  and  Clay  streets,  and,  in  his  mind's  eye,  he  saw  a  big  business 
doing.  The  article  was  unsigned,  but  it  was  probably  the  product  of  the 
pen  of  Thomas  J.  Vivian,  who  had  a  fondness  for  the  fanciful  and  could 
make  the  seemingly  impossible  appear  very  probable. 

The  journalism  of  the  seventies  was  breaking  away  from  the  traditions 
of  the  first  two  decades  of  the  city's  growth.  On  December  19,  1869,  The 
Chronicle  printed  the  first  eight-page  daily  paper  produced  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, and  the  announcement  appeared  in  its  columns  that  it 
^f^th^^°"^^^  ^^'"^^  ^^^^  largest  paper  printed  in  the  city  up  to  that  time. 
Sunday  That  might  be  recognized  as  an  important  event,  if  it  had 

Magazine  not  been   so  greatly  overshadowed  by   subsequent  perform- 

ances, but  its  size  was  not  as  significant  as  the  intimations  it 
gave  forth  of  entering  a  field  hitherto  occupied  by  a  couple  of  weekly  papers, 
which  were  issued  on  Sundays,  and  whose  demise  seems  in  some  way  linked 
up  with  the  new  departure  of  The  Chronicle.  It  would  scarcely  be  true 
to  say  that  this  issue  was  a  distinct  forerunner  of  the  modern  Sunday 
magazine,  nevertheless  there  is  abundant  evidence  in  its  makeup  that  there 
was  a  struggle  to  get  original  matter,  and  to  present  readable  selections. 
There  are  many  features  common  to  the  modern  Sunday  magazine  con- 
spicuous by  their  absence.  One  seeks  in  vain  for  the  voluminous  accounts 
of  sporting  events  with  which  readers  are  now  regaled.  Sports  were  not 
wholly  ignored,  but  they  were  not  reckoned  as  of  enough  consequence  to 
be  reviewed  in  a  Sunday  paper.  Occasionally,  however,  a  column  was  de- 
voted to  the  subject,  which  was  modestly  headed  "Sporting  Notes."  Thomas 
E.  Flynn,  until  recently  proprietor  of  the  Wasp,  was  probably  tlie  first 
sporting  editor  in  San  Francisco  to  conceive  the  idea  that  sports  would 
occupy  a  big  share  of  attention  in  this  country,  and  before  the  seventy  dec- 
ade was  well  advanced  he  was  recognized  as  the  sporting  editor  of  The 
Chronicle. 

To  be  the  sporting  editor  of  a  newspaper  in  the  seventies  did  not  imply 
that  the  writer  filling  the  position  devoted  himself  to  that  particular  sort  of 
work.  A  good  reporter  in  that  period  was  qualified  to  deal  with  any  matter 
that  came  up;  he  could  report  a  sermon  with  the  same  facility  that  he  de- 
scribed a  horse  race,  and  was  equally  at  ease  at  a  "slugging"  contest  as  at 


104  Journalism  in  California 

a  college  commencement.  Since  that  time  there  has  been  a  great  deal  of 
specialization  in  journalism,  but  there  were  many  reporters  in  the  seventies 
who  would  easily  fit  in  to  many  of  the  positions  created  under  the  change 

of  method.  The  jokesmith  in  dealing  with  this  phase  of 
Ed^^^'^*^'^^  journalism  has  managed  to  convey  the  impression  that  when 
of  the  t^^6  sporting  editor   combined  with  his   duties   the  Avork  of 

Seventies  reporting  a  religious  occurrence  that  he  brought  to  his  task 

the  cultivation  of  the  stables,  but,  oftener  than  otherwise,  the 
reverse  was  the  case,  for  in  the  days  when  there  were  no  colleges  of  journal- 
ism the  local  room  was  frequently  recruited  from  the  pulpit  and  the  school- 
room, the  training  of  which  was  not  at  all  calculated  to  impair  the  efficiency 
of  those  who  entered  the  field  which  presented  an  opportunity  for  a  better 
all  around  acquaintance  with  mankind  than  they  were  able  to  obtain  in 
the  callings  they  abandoned.  The  local  rooms  of  San  Francisco  journals  in 
the  seventies  also  drew  upon  the  legal  profession,  and  not  a  few  who  found 
the  job  of  reaching  eminence  in  the  law  an  uphill  one  resorted  to  newspaper 
work  as  affording  a  surer  income  than  practice  in  the  courts.  The  ranks 
of  the  editorial  writers  were  filled  u'p  in  the  same  fashion  and  embraced  a 
number  who  found  writing  a  more  congenial  occupation  than  teaching  the 
young  idea  how  to  shoot  or  hunting  for  clients.  Occasionally,  a  doctor 
strayed  into  journalism,  but  medicos  rarely  achieved  success. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  name  all  those  who  contributed  to  bringing 
about  the  manifest  change  in  San  Francisco  journalism  which  occurred  dur- 
ing the  seventies.    Long  before  the  close  of  the  decade  the  work  of  reporters 

had  ceased  to  be  what  it  was  when  George  E.  Barnes  de- 
^.  scribed  it  as   "beneath   contempt."     This   deservedly  harsh 

Reporters  criticism  came  from  a  man  well  qualified  to  pass  judgment, 

for  he  was  an  excellent  observer  and  had  a  distinctive  style. 

The  paper  on  which  he  worked  had  other  good  writers  on 
its  local  staff,  notably  Hugh  J.  Burke  and  Barbour  Lathrop,  but  the  limita- 
tions of  the  Call  were  an  obstacle  to  effectiveness.  Its  director  was  as  firmly 
convinced  as  Whitelaw  Eeid  that  the  newspaper  of  the  future  would  be  a 
sort  of  epitome  of  daily  events  written  by  Macaulays,  a  view  which  ignored 
the  fact  that  the  historian  of  the  English  revolution,  while  not  a  diffuse 
writer,  required  a  great  deal  of  space  in  which  to  express  his  views  and 
paint  his  word  pictures.  Perhaps  the  most  significant  fact  in  the  history  of 
San  Francisco  journalism  during  the  seventies  was  the  value  attached  to  a 
training  on  The  Chronicle,  and  the  ease  with  which  an  attache  of  that  paper 
could  obtain  a  position  on  a  rival  journal.  Among  the  number  who  worked 
on  The  Chronicle  during  the  seventies  who  transferred  their  services  to 
other  fields  may  be  mentioned  A.  B.  Henderson,  who  filled  the  city  editor's 
desk  under  Charles  de  Young  for  several  years  and  subsequently  became 
managing  editor  of  the  Call  and  later  of  the  Examiner.  Albert  Sutliffe, 
one  of  the  best  all  around  men  in  San  Francisco  journalism  in  the  closing 
years  of  the  seventies,  did  the  dramatic  criticism  of  The  Chronicle  and  the 
book  reviews.  On  the  outbreak  of  the  Tong  King  rebellion  in  1884,  which 
resulted  in  the  establishment  of  a  French  protectorate  over  that  part  of 
China,  Sutliffe  was  sent  to  the  seat  of  war  and  had  the  distinction  of  pene- 
trating the  lines  of  the  rebels  known  as  the  "Black  Flags"  and  securing  an 
interview  with  the  chiefs,  which,  after  its  publication  in  The  Chronicle,  was 
translated  and  printed  in  the  leading  journals  of  France.    After  the  quelling 


The  Pioneer  Sunday  Magazine  105 

of  the  rebels,  Sutliffe  made  his  way  to  Europe,  his  object  being  to  visit  the 
principal  countries  with  a  view  of  studying  their  horticultural  and  flori- 
cultural  methods  for  the  purpose  of  writing  a  series  of  articles  for 
The  Chronicle.  Subsequently  he  acted  as  Paris  correspondent  of  the 
paper. 

Among  the  contemporaries  of  Sutliffe  were  Daniel  O'Connell,  Arthur 
McEwen,  Joseph  Goodman,  Chester  Hull,  Will  N.  Hart,  W.  S.  Dewey. 
Thomas  E.   Flynn,  James  V.   Coffey,   Frank  Gassaway,  John  Timmins, 

Ernest  C.  Stock,  who  was  police  reporter  for  half  a  century; 
Expounders  Frank  Ballinger,  who  went  from  tlie  city  room  of  The 
Democratic  Chronicle  to  tlie  city  desk  of  the  Call ;  G.  B.  Densmore,  who 
Doctrine  wrote  editorials  for  the  Call  and  dramatic  criticisms  for  the 

Bulletin;  William  Bausman,  Sam  Davis,  Frank  Pixley, 
Fred  Somers  and  Samuel  Seabough.  It  is  so  long  since  Judge  Coffey  wrote 
for  the  press  only  old-timers  will  remember  that  he  was  the  principal  edi- 
torial writer  for  the  Examiner  during  tlie  period  preceding  its  purchase  by 
George  Hearst,  the  father  of  William  E.  Hearst,  who  secured  it  to  forward 
his  Senatorial  aspirations.  The  Examiner  was  a  faithful  expounder  of 
Democratic  doctrine,  and,  while  Mr.  Coffey  was  contributing  to  its  columns, 
it  indulged  in  no  heretical  outbreaks.  As  was  the  fashion  at  the  time. 
Democrats  were  apt  to  select  journalists  as  political  representatives,  and 
the  Judge  was  thus  rewarded.  He  was  sent  to  the  Legislature  in  1877  and 
his  ability  was  there  recognized  by  his  election  to  the  chairmanship  of  the 
San  Francisco  delegation  of  the  Assembly,  which  at  that  time  numbered 
twenty  and  wielded  a  much  greater  influence  than  at  present.  During  his 
legislative  career,  the  Judge  was  foremost  in  the  reform  movements  of  the 
session,  and  subsequently  he  was  placed  on  the  bench  by  his  fellow  citizens, 
who  manifest  an  inclination  to  make  his  term  perpetual. 

Frank  Pixley,  the  founder  of  the  Argonaut,  did  editorial  work  for 
The  Chronicle  before  he  began  his  career  of  antagonism  to  a  couple  of 
elements  in  the  community,  the  Jews  and  the  Catholics.    The  fact  that  he 

was  able  to  maintain  apparently  friendly  personal  relations 
P^®  with  the  people  he  was  constantly  assailing  gave  rise  to  an 

of  the  impression  that  his  animosities  were  not  as  deep-seated  as 

Argonaut  would  be  inferred  from  a  perusal  of  some  of  his  leaders,  in 

which  he  was  in  the  habit  of  introducing  nicknames  so 
picturesque  that  they  may  have  seemed  more  amusing  than  hateful  to  those 
whom  he  abused.  Associated  with  him  in  the  publication  of  the  Argonaut 
was  Fred  Somers,  who  for  a  time  was  a  reporter  on  The  Chronicle  and 
represented  it  in  the  Legislature  of  1875-76.  He  was  addicted  to  telling 
the  truth  without  regard  to  the  feelings  of  the  person  upon  whom  he  re- 
flected and  one  fine  day  a  member  from  Mariposa  county,  whom  he  ac- 
cused of  being  in  the  service  of  the  railroad,  hit  him  over  the  head  with  a 
cane  and  nearly  killed  him.  He  recovered,  however,  and  had  the  satisfac- 
tion of  seeing  his  assailant  driven  out  of  politics.  Somers  severed  his  con- 
nection with  the  Argonaut  to  start  Current  Opinion,  which,  under  his 
management,  became  a  financial  success.  The  News  Letter,  founded  by 
Frederick  Marriott,  the  father  of  the  present  proprietor,  was  a  widely  read 
journal  during  the  seventies,  and  was  known  all  over  the  Coast  for  its 
caustic  comment  on  current  affairs.  It  was  on  this  paper  that  Ambrose 
Bierce's  work  first  attracted  attention,  and  San  Francisco  rendered  a  verdict 
upon  its  merits  which  has  since  been  ratified  by  the  literary  world. 


106  Journalism  in  California 

Samuel  Seaboiigh,  for  many  years  one  of  the  principal  writing  editors 
of  The  Chronicle,  commenced  his  journalistic  career  on  the  Sacramento 
Union  and  remained  with  it  during  the  time  of  its  bitterest  antagonism  of 

the  railroad.  He  arrived  in  California  about  the  time  the 
Forceful  earliest  gold  seekers  made  their  appearance  and  engaged  in 

Editorial  ^^^6  search  for  the  precious  metal,  but,  failing  of  success,  he 

Writer  became  a  school   teacher.     He  was  a  reader  of  few  books, 

but  they  were  of  the  best,  and  he  read  them  thoroughly.  He 
almost  knew  his  Gibbon  by  heart,  and  was  prone  to  draw  illustrations  from 
and  find  analogies  in  the  "Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,"  and, 
like  many  English  writers,  he  laid  great  stress  upon  the  value  of  the  King 
James  version  of  the  Bible.  His  strength  as  a  writer,  however,  was  much 
more  dependent  on  his  familiarity  with  current  legislation,  State  and 
national,  than  upon  his  literary  attainments.  He  was  an  assiduous  reader 
of  the  Congressional  Record,  and  a  close  student  of  statistics,  which  he  de- 
lighted in  analyzing  and  drawing  inferences  from.  He  produced  remarka- 
bly clean  copy,  an  erasure  or  a  correction  rarely  appearing  in  what  he 
wrote.  He  had  a  habit  of  leaning  back  and  rocking  in  his  chair  before  be- 
ginning an  article,  and  when  he  started  he  usually  wrote  to  a  finish  without 
a  pause.  What  he  wrote  required  no  correction,  if  the  subject  and  tone 
were  acceptable.  His  forte  was  stinging  criticism  of  railroad  abuses,  but, 
like  Silas  Wegg,  he  occasionally  dropped  into  poetry.  When  the  sap  began 
to  rise  an  editorial  redolent  of  the  perfume  of  the  woods  and  the  fields  was 
forthcoming,  and  when  the  leaves  began  to  fall  there  would  be  an  article 
breathing  the  melancholy  of  autumn.  When  he  died  the  editor  of  The 
Chronicle  had  a  score  or  more  of  his  editorials  on  hand  which  were  subse- 
quently published,  a  fact  which  may  suggest  that  they  were  not  of  an 
ephemeral  character. 

Among  the  spectacular  entrances  into  the  journalistic  field  during  the 
seventies  was  the  Daily  Mail.  It  was  started  early  in  1876  by  D.  D. 
Dalziel,  a  young  Englishman,  the  husband  of  Dickey  Lingard,  a  popular 

soubrette.     Just  what  prompted  Dalziel  to  embark  on  this 

d^the  venture  is  not  quite  clear,  but  it  very  soon  developed  that 

Evening  ^1^6  new  aspirant  for  public  favor  was  to  boost  the  candidacy 

Mail  of  Mark  McDonald  for  the  United  States  Senatorship.    Mark 

■\vas  a  Democrat,  but  did  not  appear  to  be  a  favorite  in  rail- 
road circles  and,  therefore,  failed  of  his  ambition,  the  choice  of  the  Legis- 
lature of  1877-78,  guided  by  the  railroad,  falling  upon  a  man  named 
Farley,  promptly  nicknamed  Champagne  Farley,  because  of  the  copious 
libations  of  "fizz"  which  followed  his  triumph.  When  McDonald  suffered 
defeat,  he  ceased  supplying  the  sinews  of  war.  While  the  money  lasted, 
Dalziel  made  a  good  paper,  employing  such  men  as  Pixley  of  the  Argo- 
naut and  David  Nesficld  to  write  editorials.  During  its  brief  career,  the 
Mail  had  three  city  editors,  S.  F.  Sutherland,  Arthur  McEwen  and  John 
Paul  Cosgrove.  Among  the  reporters  were  numbered  Dan  O'Connell,  a 
bohemian  of  bohemians,  whose  memory  is  still  annually  honored  with  a 
dinner  l)y  the  members  of  the  Bohemian  Club;  Will  L.  Visscher.  John  H. 
Delahanty,  George  B.  Mackrett,  Thomas  E.  Flynn,  Charles  J.  McCarthy, 
Henry  Cioddard,  Charles  B.  Flannagan,  Harry  McCausland  and  John 
St.  Muir.  On  tlic  demise  of  the  Mail  Dalziel  disappeared  from  the  scene, 
and  his  force  was  absorbed  by  the  surviving  city  papers.  ., 


The  Pioneer  Sunday  Magazine 


107 


It  was  about  this  time  that  Charles  de  Young  decided  to  relieve  him- 
self of  part  of  the  heavy  burden  he  had  taken  on  his  shoulders.  Up  to 
1878,  Charles  practically  looked  after  the  details  of  the  editorial  depart- 
ment, while  his  brother,  M.  H.,  gave  his  attention  to  the 
Tlie  ,  ^  rapidly  expanding  business  of  the  paper.  One  or  two  at- 
NewManaginff*^"^P^**  ^^  ^"*^^  ^  suitable  managing  editor  had  been  made  by 
Editor  importing   Eastern  journalists   of   experience,   but  they  did 

not  fit  into  their  new  environment.  In  1877  the  writer  of 
this  sketch,  who  had  commenced  his  newspaper  career  on  the  San  Diego 
Union  when  it  began  the  publication  of  a  daily  in  1870,  and  afterward 
had  filled  the  city  desk  of  the  Washington  Chronicle,  and  served  on  the 
Washington  staff  of  the  Chicago  Times  as  correspondent  on  the  Senate  side 
of  the  Capitol,  returned  to  California.  He  found  no  difficulty  in  securing 
a  position  on  The  Chronicle  and  during  the  summer  of  1877  was  chiefly 
employed  doing  special  work.  During  tlie  winter  of  1877-78  he  reported 
the  doings  of  the  Legislature  in  its  last  session  under  the  old  Constitution. 
After  its  adjournment,  on  his  return  to  San  Francisco,  Charles  de  Young 
offered  him  the  managing  editorship  of  the  paper,  coupling  the  offer  with 
the  announcement  that  he  was  about  to  depart  for  Europe.  The  offer  came 
as  a  surprise,  but  was  promptly  accepted.  At  the  time,  John  Timmins,  who 
had  grown  up  with  The  Chronicle,  was  nominally  managing  editor.  He 
was  a  valuable  man,  but  Mr.  de  Young  had  never  devolved  the  duties  of 
manager  upon  him.  It  is  characteristic  of  Charles  de  Young  that  when  he 
bade  good-by  to  his  new  managing  editor  he  earnestly  requested  him  to 
endeavor  to  reconcile  Mr.  Timmins  to  the  change.  The  effort  to  do  so  was 
attended  with  success,  and  he  remained  on  the  staff  of  the  paper  until  the 
middle  of  the  eighties. 


CHAPTER    XIV 

JOURNALISM   BEGINS   TO   FIND   ITSELF   IN 
SAN   FRANCISCO. 

San  Francisco 's  First  Newspaper  Building — The  Chronicle 's  Home  on  the  Corner 
of  Kearny  and  Bush  Streets — An  Exhibition  of  Confidence  in  the  Future — A 
Thoroughly  Up-to-Date  Plant — Those  Who  Inspected  It  Believed  It  Would 
Never  Be  Outgrown — First  American  Demonstration  of  Electric  Lighting  in 
Chronicle  Office — An  Illustration  of  the  Journalism  That  Does  Things — When 
Kearny  and  Bush  Streets  W^as  the  City  's  Center — The  Germ  of  the  Index  Card 
System — The  Chronicle 's  Contemporary  Library — A  Big  Account  of  a  Big  Fire — 
The  Big  Inyo  Earthquake  Pictured  by  The  Chronicle — The  Diamond  Mine 
Swindle  Exposure — The  Battle  in  the  Lava  Beds  With  Modoc  Indians — An  In- 
terview Which  Attracted  World-Wide  Attention — When  Interviewing  Was  Much 
in  Vogue — Passengers  by  Eail  From  the  East  Win  Distinction — Publication 
of  Letter  Lists — No  Press  Club  in  Early  Days — Newspaper  Men  Who  Were 
Bohemians — The  Glorification  of  San  Francisco  and  Its  Atmosphere — Liberal 
Use  of  the  Wire. 


N  THE  29th  of  September,  1879,  The  Chronicle,  then  in 
the  fifteenth  year  of  its  existence,  moved  into  a  buikl- 
ing,  especially  constructed  for  its  use  on  the  northeast 
corner  of  Kearny  and  Bush  streets.  It  was  a  journalistic 
event  of  importance  because  it  marked  the  beginning  in 
San  Francisco  of  a  new  newspaper  point  of  view. 
Hitherto  the  publishers  of  daily  papers  in  San  Fran- 
cisco had  acted  as  if  their  business  was  a  makeshift 
affair,  devoid  of  elements  of  permanency.  Even  in  cases  in  which  capital 
was  not  lacking,  proprietors  of  daily  papers  had  pursued  hand-to-mouth 
methods  which  suggested  instability.  Their  publication  offices  were  dis- 
sociated from  the  premises  in  which  their  papers  were  produced,  and  their 
quarters  were  invariably  rented.  The  propensity  of  those  pursuing  the 
same  avocation  to  get  close  together  caused  them  to  plant  themselves  in 
the  narrow  and  somewhat  unsavory  streets  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  City 
Hall,  which  was  then  situated  on  the  spot  where  the  Hall  of  Justice  now 
stands,  and  there  they  showed  a  disposition  to  remain  until  the  brothers 
de  Young  made  the  bold  move  which  carried  them  several  blocks  away  from 
what  was  then  regard od  as  the  business  center  of  the  city,  and  they  thus 
advertised  their  confidence  in  the  future  of  San  Francisco,  and  their 
pride  in  their  paper,  by  establishing  themselves  in  a  building  which  for  a 
period  was  as  well  known  as  the  lofty  structure  erected  in  1890  by  M.  H. 
de  Young  on  the  corner  of  Market,  Geary  and  Kearny  is  today. 

It  was  not  merely  the  new  building  that  gave  importance  to  the  move 

108  ^ 


c:. 


« 


1  ^*l«««^  '    ^. 


CHRONICLE   BUILDING 

Erected  by  the  brothers,  Charles  and  M.  H.  de  Young  in  1879  on 

corner  of  Kearny  and  Bush  streets. 


First  Real  Newspaper  Building  109 

whicli  put  The  Chronicle  so  prominently  in  the  public  eye;  its  c(|uipnient, 
which  the  proprietors  took  good  care  to  exhibit  to  the  most  prominent 
citizens  of  San  Francisco  at  a  reception  tendered  to  them,  announced  that 
journalism  was  no  longer  to  be  a  haphazard  afi'air  in  San 
Thoroughly  Francisco,  but  an  institution  which  would  thenceforth  devote 
Up-to-Date  itself  with  increased  energy  to  the  promotion  of  the  interests 
Plant  of  the  city,  and  the  commonwealth.    It  had  already  given  am- 

ple evidence  of  intelligent  virility  with  the  restricted  means 
at  its  command,  but  in  its  new  quarters,  and  with  a  thoroughly  up-to-date 
])lant,  and  all  the  means  necessary  to  produce  a  great  paper,  it  announced 
its  intention  to  surpass  its  previous  exploits,  a  promise  which  it  faithfully 
kept.  To  those  who  viewed  the  first  real  newspaper  building  of  San 
Francisco  on  that  September  day  in  1879  nothing  seemed  lacking,  and 
more  than  one  expert  who  inspected  the  spick  and  span  new  machinery  and 
appliances  from  the  two  Hoe  perfecting  presses  in  the  basement  and  the  en- 
gine which  provided  the  power  to  revolve  their  cylinders,  to  the  conven- 
iences for  mailing  in  the  fifth  story,  was  ready  to  admit  that  there  was 
little  opportunity  to  improve  on  the  plant  of  The  Chronicle,  and  joined  in 
the  prediction  that  it  Avould  be  a  long  time  before  the  marvelous  facilities 
exhibited  to  their  wondering  gaze  would  be  worked  to  their  limit.  Among 
the  visitors  were  many  journalists  from  interior  cities,  and  they  united  in 
the  expression  of  the  opinion  that  the  two  wonderful  web  presses,  each, 
capable  of  printing  33,000  copies  of  The  Chronicle  in  an  hour,  would  al- 
ways meet  circulation  requirements,  no  matter  how  great  the  expansion. 

Those  were  days  when  men  expressed  themselves  in  big  terms  when 
speaking  of  the  future,  but  a  review  of  their  actions  suggests  that  their 
faith  was  cast  in  a  mold  which  was  inimical  to  expansion.     They  spoke 
with  unbounded  confidence  of  a  city  that  would  be  inhabited 
^nd  ^^^^^  ^'-^^  millions,  and  planned  for  one  of  thousands.    The  narrow- 

Inadequate        "Gss   which  had   impelled   Horace  Hawes,   when  he  framed 
Plans  the  consolidation  act  in  1856,  to  throw  out  what  is  now  San 

Mateo  county,  and  confined  the  city  to  its  present  restricted 
area,  had  worn  away  to  some  extent,  and  men  had  begun  to  think  that 
population  might  flow  beyonk  Polk  street,  which  was  then  the  most  dis- 
tant thoroughfare  penetrated  by  the  Clay-street  cable  road,  but  they  had 
no  more  conception  of  the  needs  of  a  million  inhabitants  than  we  have  of 
the  numbers  billion  or  trillion.  Impressions  concerning  the  future  of 
newspapering  were  equally  vague.  Every  one  who  gave  the  matter  a 
thought  felt  assured  that  "it  would  have  a  great  expansion,  but  the  most 
penetrating  were  not  able  to  guess  the  phenomenal  changes  which  were  to 
take  place  before  The  Chronicle  should  round  out  the  first  half  century  of 
its  existence.  Yet  the  germs  of  most  of  these  would  have  been  perceptible 
to  the  discerning  had  the  belief  in  the  possibility  of  boundless  accomplish- 
ment which  now  obtains  been  existent  at  the  time. 

But  it  was  not.  It  was  easy  to  quote  the  trite  observation  that  great 
oaks  grow  from  little  acorns,  but  imagination  was  not  sufficiently  developed 
to  create  mental  forests  of  mighty  trees  from  the  imperfectly  recognized 
■  seeds  which  were  about  to  germinate.  A  short  time  before  the  opening  of 
The  Chronicle's  new  building,  on  the  return  of  Charles  de  Young  from  the 
Paris  Exposition  of  1878,  he  brought  with  hint  a  Gramme  electrical 
machine,  and  three  or  four  Jablochkoff  candles,  which  were  used  to  lUumi- 


110  Journalism  in  California 

nate  the  local  room  of  the  paper,  while  it  was  still  in  its  dingy  quarters  on 
Clay  street,  and  to  make  a  display  in  front  of  the  publication  office,  which 
was  then  situated  on  Montgomery  street  near  Commercial.  Father  Neri, 
one  of  the  professors  in  the  Jesuit  College,  then  occupying 
A  Practical  ^j^^  present  site  of  the  Emporium  department  store  on  Mar- 
Demonstration        ,       i         ,      1      T       •  1     1    x-  XI  •    \  i.      C    T    ^       A 

of  Electric        ^"^^^  street,  had  given  an  exhibition  on  the  niglit  ot  July  4, 
Lighting  1876,  of  an  arc  light  which  he  had  fashioned,  the  electricity 

for  which  was  produced  by  a  French  machine;  but  The 
Chronicle's  efforts  were  directed  toward  demonstrating  that  a  new  illu- 
minant  had  arrived,  Mr.  de  Young  having  unbounded  faith  that  it  would 
soon  displace  gas.  It  was  the  first  attempt  in  the  United  States  to  utilize 
electricity  for  lighting  purposes.  It  was  not  a  great  success,  the  candles 
sputtering,  the  current  created  being  defectively  supplied,  but  it  was  a 
newspaper  triumph  of  the  first  magnitude,  and  caused  more  talk  in  San 
Francisco  than  any  of  the  previous  feats  of  The  Chronicle,  affording  one  of 
the  earliest  illustrations  of  "the  journalism  that  does  things."  It  likewise 
provided  innumerable  texts  for  editorial  comment  on  "the  light  of  the 
future,"  in  which  the  prediction  was  freely  and  repeatedly  made  that  it 
would  displace  all  other  illuminants. 

When  the  new  Chronicle  building  was  erected,  part  of  its  prediction 
concerning  the  use  of  electricity  was  already  in  a  fair  way  toward  realization. 
A  little  more  than  a  year  had  elapsed  since  the  first  sputtering  Jablochkoff 
lamp  was  exhibited  in  front  of  the  Montgomery-street  office 
A  Brilliant  ^^  rpj^^  Chronicle,  but  in  that  brief  interval  the  Brush  machine 
Francisco  ^''^^  ^G^n  perfected  to  such  a  degree  that  it  was  determined  to 

Corner  make  the  new  quarters  of  the  paper  the  most  attractive  part 

of  town  after  nightfall,  and  this  was  accomplished  by  erecting 
ornamental  iron  posts  surmounted  by  arc  lamps,  the  wires  for  which  were 
led  through  the  hollow  cores  of  the  posts  from  the  basement  of  the  building. 
There  were  six  of  these  lamps  on  Kearny  and  Bush  streets  and  the  blaze 
of  light  was  considered  one  of  the  sights  of  the  city.  The  corner  was  then 
in  the  midst  of  the  amusement  center,  three  of  the  principal  theaters  being 
on  Bush  street,  the  California,  the  Bush  and  the  Standard.  The  new 
Baldwin  on  the  corner  of  Market  and  Powell  streets  was  still  voted  a  little 
far  out,  although  promenaders — the  practice  of  taking  a  walk  after  nightfall 
was  still  in  vogue — made  it  the  western  boundary  of  their  "constitutional." 
But  no  one  saw  in  this  extension  of  the  use  of  electricity  the  fore- 
runner of  its  general  application  to  the  processes  of  producing  a  daily  paper, 
nor  did  any  observer  on  that  opening  day  see  in  the  three  hundred  tin  boxes 
in  pigeon  holes  ranged  along  the  blank  wall  of  a  narrow  room 
■^^®  *'®"'^  what  was  doubtless  the  germ  of  the  index  card  system,  and 
[ndex  Card  of  the  vertical  file  now  in  such  general  use.  A  few  papers 
System  of  the  East  had  inaugurated  the  practice  of  preserving  in- 

formation concerning  individuals,  the  outcome  of  which  is 
known  in  newspaper  offices  as  "the  morgue,"  and  some  had  thought  it 
worth  their  while  to  index  the  contents  of  their  papers.  Both  of  these  con- 
veniences had  been  adopted  by  The  Chronicle  while  quartered  in  the  Clay- 
street  editorial  rooms,  and  a  respectable  array  of  scrap  books  had  ac- 
cumulated. Much  of  the  scrapped  matter  being  ephemeral  in  character, 
the  number  of  useless  books  increased.  The  resort  to  the  tin  boxes  was 
for  the  purpose  of  thinning  out  matter  which  appeared  to  be  of  no  further 


First  Real  Newspaper  Building  111 

use.  Naturally,  it  occurred  to  the  librarian,  and  such  a  functionary  was 
promptly  appointed  when  the  new  building  was  occupied,  to  put  the  clip- 
pings where  he  could  easily  find  them.  This  he  accomplished  by  arranging 
his  boxes  in  the  same  fashion  as  tlie  index  of  a  ledger,  and  from  this  begin- 
ning The  Chronicle's  filing  boxes  came  to  be  numbered  by  the  thousand. 
The  late  Whitelaw  Eeid,  who  was  much  interested  in  the  details  of  news- 
paper methods,  on  the  occasion  of  his  frequent  visits  to  San  Francisco  was 
in  the  habit  of  dropping  into  The  Chronicle  office,  and  invariably  took  a 
look  through  the  library,  which  he  complimented  as  the  best  arranged  of 
any  paper  in  the  country,  and  it  is  on  his  authority  that  the  statement  is 
made  that  The  Chronicle  was  the  first  to  apply  the  principle  of  the  index 
card  system  in  a  newspaper  office. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  seventies  there  was  a  marked  change  in  the 
morale  of  the  forces  of  newspapers  on  the  Coast  and  in  Eastern  cities, 
which  sometimes  was  made  the  subject  of  comment.     But,  as  is  often  the 

case,  when  the  facts  are  only  half  understood,  the  ciiticism 
J         ,.  is  too  severe,  being  based  on  the  erroneous  assumption  that 

That  Does  intemperance  was  the  rule,  whereas  it  was  merely  the  excep- 
Things  tion,  even  in  the  most  indulgent  offices.     Had  this  not  been 

the  case,  The  Chronicle,  in  the  history  written  in  1879,  in 
which  it  described  its  achievements,  could  not  have  presented  so  long  a  list 
of  successes,  especially  in  the  field  which  some  recent  ill-informed  writers 
imagine  was  not  discovered  before  that  date.  Long  before  the  now  famous 
editor  of  the  Xew  York  World  was  credited  with  inaugurating  the  journal- 
ism that  does  things.  The  Chronicle  had  been  working  along  those  lines. 
It  had  scarcely  emerged  from  its  dramatic  form  before  it  began  investigat- 
ing abuses  and  exposing  them,  the  result  being  a  long  list  of  reforms  ac- 
complished. But  it  w^as  fully  as  busy  in  the  work  of  construction,  as  the 
account  in  the  chapter  describing  the  part  it  played  in  securing  a  much- 
needed  Constitution  for  the  State  abundantly  testified. 

But  the  paper  distinguished  itself  in  the  work  which  the  conservative 
thinker  has  always  contended  is  the  true  function  of  a  newspaper,  namely, 
the  printing  of  the  news.     It  has  been  related  how  during  the  excitement 

of  the  earthquake  of  1868  it  took  the  pains  to  gather  details 
A    ount  ^"^  issue  in  extras  accounts  of  the  extent  of  the  damage, 

of  a  which   had   the   effect   of   removing   the   fears   produced    by 

Big  Fire  uncertainty.     Considering  the  youth  of  the  journal,  this  was 

a  notable  exploit,  but  not  more  significant  than  its  treatment 
of  the  Chicago  fire  of  October  10,  1871.  The  disaster  was  the  greatest 
of  its  kind  experienced  in  any  American  city  up  to  that  date  and  a  tele- 
graphic account  of  it,  which  required  four  columns  space  for  its  presenta- 
tion, was  printed.  But  the  length  of  the  dispatch,  and  the  fact  that  a  head 
twenty  and  a  half  inches  deep  and  one  column  wide  preceded  the  account 
of  the  fire  is  less  notable  than  the  accompanying  sketch  of  great  conflagra- 
tions in  ancient  and  modern  times  which  was  written  with  such  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  subject  treated  as  to  preclude  the  idea  that  the  writer's  source 
of  information  was  the  encyclopedia.  It  was  an  interesting  study  and  a 
precursor  of  much  more  of  that  sort  of  work  to  be  done  in  the  future. 

In  1872,  on  April  llth  of  that  year,  Inyo  county  was  visited  by  a 
severe  earthquake,  which  was  accompanied  by  loss  of  life  and  many  mar- 
velous physical  changes.     All  the  papers  contained  accounts  of  the  event, 


112  Journalism  in  California 

but  The  Chronicle  dispatched  a  man  to  the  scene  of  the  disturbance,  who 
was  able  to  sketch  as  well  as  describe  the  event  and  the  changes  it  wrought. 
On  the  following  Sunday  The  Chronicle  appeared  with  an  extended  de- 
scription, accompanied  by  a  full  page  of  pictures,  consisting 
Illustration  Qf  four  large  cuts  drawTi  on  wood.  Unlike  tlie  finished  draw- 
g .  ?■  ing  of  the  artist  Tojetti,  executed  for  the  paper  some  years 

Disaster  earlier,  these  cuts  were  sketchy  and  somewhat  amateurish. 

But  crude  as  they  were,  they  satisfactorily  illustrated  the 
event,  and  made  clear  the  allusions  in  the  description.  In  the  same  year, 
on  November  26,  1872,  another  illustration  was  furnished  of  the  fact  that 
Charles  de  Young  was  convinced  that  pictures  and  maps  were  to  be  a 
feature  of  daily  journalism.  An  entire  page  was  devoted  to  a  map  which 
showed  the  region  in  which  diamonds  were  said  to  have  been  found.  The 
alleged  discovery  was  a  cunningly  devised  scheme  of  a  group  of  rogues  and 
succeeded  in  separating  several  wealthy  San  Franciscans  from  some  of  their 
hard  cash.  The  deception  was  accomplished  by  "salting"'  a  considerable 
area  with  African  diamonds,  purchased  in  London.  Preceding  the  salting 
a  couple  of  apparently  rough  miners  made  their  appearance  in  the  city 
with  a  lot  of  stones  about  the  value  of  which  they  professed  to  be  uncertain, 
but  they  suspected  them  to  be  diamonds.  The  story  soon  spread,  and  the 
rich  "suckers"  referred  to  became  interested.  The  character  of  the  stones 
was  determined  by  sending  them  to  New  York,  where  the  Tiffanys,  after 
examining  them,  said  they  were  worth  about  $150,000.  An  "expert" 
was  sent  to  the  alleged  diamond  fields,  the  location  of  which  was  kept 
secret.  He  found  more  diamonds.  A  company  was  formed  to  operate  the 
mines,  but  before  it  got  to  work  Clarence  King  of  the  United  States  Geo- 
logical Survey  exploded  the  mine.  He  had  been  over  the  whole  country  and 
was  certain  that  there  was  no  diamond  formation.  Convinced  of  this  fact, 
he  caused  inquiries  to  be  made  in  London  and  learned  of  the  purchase  of  a 
lot  of  African  diamonds  in  the  rough  by  an  American,  who  turned  out  to 
be  one  of  the  pair  who  engineered  the  swindle  which  cost  the  dupes  over 
$350,000. 

In  the  following  year  The  Chronicle  had  an  opportunity  to  distinguish 
itself  by  furnishing  its  readers  with  earlier  and  fuller  accounts  of  the  last 
Indian  uprising  in  California,  an  event  which  attracted  national  attention 
and  brought  two  or  three  Eastern  correspondents  to  the  Coast. 
Accounts  It  was  the  so-called  Modoc  war,  which  was  brought  on  by  the 

?J  J^®  murder  of  General  Canliy  and  Dr.  Thomas  by  Captain  Jack, 

Indian  War  Jo^^n  Sconchin,  Black  j'im  and  Boston  Charley.  The  Gen- 
eral and  the  doctor  went  to  the  Klamath  country  to  incjuire 
into  the  grievances  of  the  Indians,  who  had  been  threatening  trouble  for 
some  time.  There  were  conferences  and  in  the  course  of  one  of  tbem  the 
General  and  Dr.  Thomas  were  treacherously  murdered.  After  the  com- 
mission of  the  deed,  the  Indians  fled  to  the  lava  beds  of  Modoc  county. 
Troops  were  sent  to  dislodge  them  from  their  fastness,  but  they  managed  to 
evade  rounding  up  for  over  a  year.  The  murders  were  committed  in  April, 
1872,  but  the  murderers  were  not  captured  until  the  tribe  was  subdued. 
The  four  Indians  mentioned  above  were  tried  and  executed  on  the  3rd  of 
October,  1874.  The  progress  of  the  war  had  been  followed _  for  The 
Chronicle  by  a  special  correspondent,  and  when  the  culminating  event 
occurred  its  representative  succeeded  in  getting  his  report  into  San  Fran- 
cisco ahead  of  all  competitors. 


First  Real  Newspaper  Building  113 

Another  triumph  was  scored  by  The  Chronicle  in  May,  1874,  by  the 
discovery  in  San  Francisco  of  Henri  Eochefort,  who  had  managed  to  elude 
the  vigilance  of  reporters  after  his  escape  from   New   Caledonia.     The 

notorious  Frenchman  not  only  consented  to  be  interviewed. 
Interview  ^^^  ^^^^  ^^^°  persuaded  to  tell  the  story  of  how  he  contrived 

With  Henri      ^o  get  away  from  the  island  in  which  he  had  spent  some  years 
Eochefort  of  exile  in  a  signed  article  in  which  he  made  some  interesting 

comments  on  political  conditions  in  France.  These  were 
made  on  the  eve  of  his  departure  from  the  city  and  caused  quite  a  ferment 
in  the  French  colony,  which  apparently  failed  to  share  the  sentiments  ex- 
pressed, and  if  a  resolution  passed  by  a  local  club  correctly  represented  the 
opinion  of  its  members,  they  believed  that  The  Chronicle  had  committed  a 
breach  of  international  courtesy  in  permitting  the  ex-communist  to  discuss 
the  affairs  of  France  in  an  American  journal.  At  this  particular  time 
interviewing  had  great  vogue  in  San  Francisco,  and  few  persons  of  con- 
sequence escaped  the  enterprising  reporter,  who  was  almost  invariably 
received  with  a  show  of  courtesy  easily  construed  into  a  welcome  by  the 
interviewer,  who  had  less  trouble  in  securing  an  expression  of  opinion  than 
supposed  by  the  outsider  who  too  readily  believed  the  animadversions  upon 
the  practice  which  sometimes  found  their  way  into  the  papers. 

During  the  seventies  it  was  the  custom  of  the  newspapers  of  San 
Francisco  to  have  the  names  of  passengers  en  route  to  the  city  telegraphed 
from  Ogden.    The  practice  was  continued  until  the  lists  trespassed  on  space 

to  such  an  extent  that  it  was  deemed  expedient  to  omit  their 
Passengers  publication.  When  that  was  done,  there  was  a  wave  of 
«ie^ast  protest  which  had  to  be  met  by  an  explanation  that  persons 

by  Rail  coming  to  San  Francisco  by  rail  from  the  East  were  of  no 

more  consequence  than  those  who  made  their  way  into  the 
city  from  other  points  and  by  other  transportation  routes.  The  readers  of 
newspapers  were  exceedingly  opposed  to  innovation  and  resented  being  de- 
prived of  any  feature  to  which  they  had  become  accustomed.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  imagine  any  considerable  number  of  patrons  at  the  present 
day  uniting  in  a  round  robin  to  a  publisher  concerning  such  a  matter  as  the 
publication  of  a  passenger  list,  but  such  communications  were  not  uncom- 
mon at  the  time.  In  the  early  part  of  its  career  The  Chronicle  had  under- 
taken the  publication  of  the  list  of  letters  remaining  unclaimed  at  the 
General  Postoffice.  The  remuneration  was  insignificant,  but  it  was  sup- 
posed that  the  publication  of  the  names  created  a  demand  for  the  paper. 
When  the  pressure  for  space  began  to  be  felt,  an  investigation  was  made 
which  disclosed  that  it  was  not  the  subscribers  or  regular  readers  of  the 
paper  whose  letters  were  uncalled  for,  but  those  of  strangers  whose  acquaint- 
ance with  the  fact  that  the  list  was  published  was  derived  from  a  copy 
posted  conveniently  near  the  delivery  window.  Nevertheless,  when  the  list 
was  missed  from  its  accustomed  place  on  Monday  morning,  grave  doubts 
Avere  expressed  by  patrons  as  to  the  wisdom  of  the  discontinuance. 

It  will  be  inferred  from  the  preceding  statement  that  the  community 
was  still  very  provincial  in  action  and  thought  despite  the  fact  that  the  local 
press  was  fond  of  dwelling  on  its  metropolitan  position.  The  inference 
would  be  perfectly  justifiable.  Railroad  communication  with  the  East, 
which  had  been  established  for  several  years,  did  not  accomplish  all  that 
was  expected  of  it  by  a  people  who  had  been  taught  to  believe  that  once  in 

12 


114  Journalism  in  California 

touch  with  the  communities  on  the  other  side  of  the  Eockies,  hahits  would 
be  revohitionized  and  we  woukl  at  once  fall  into  the  mode  of  life  of  those 
on  the  Atlantic  littoral.  Never  was  an  expectation  subjected 
A  Metropolis  ^^  greater  disappointment.  The  first  transcontinental  rail- 
Provincial  ^'^^^^  ^^'^^  completed,  and  in  the  course  of  time  it  had  several 
Ideas  rivals;  but  California  remained  as  if  isolated,  and  the  pecul- 

iarities inherited  from  the  pioneers  continued  to  endure  in 
a  form  not  always  recognized,  because  they  were  disguised  by  words  which 
obscured  the  fact.  In  some  measure  the  press  was  responsible  for  this 
obscuration.  It  did  not  occur  to  the  early  workers  on  newspapers  to  form 
a  club  of  their  own,  but  they  constituted  a  considerable  and  important  ele- 
ment in  the  Bohemian  Club,  which-  began  its  existence  in  the  seventies. 
From  its  inception  its  membership,  composed  as  it  was  -of  artists,  literary 
and  professional  men,  adopted  the  belief  that  there  was  something  dis- 
tinctive about  California  worth  maintaining,  and  they  managed  to  convey 
it  to  the  stranger  who  easily  became  convinced  that  San  Francisco  had  an 
"atmosphere"  of  its  own.  An  inspection  of  the  newspaper  files  of  the 
seventies  and  eighties  exhibits  the  deep-seatedness  of  the  conviction,  for  they 
are  filled  with  articles  breathing  the  sentiment  so  assiduously  cultivated 
in  Bohemia.  When  their  authorship  is  traced,  they  are  found  to  be  from  the 
pens  of  such  well-known  men  as  John  F.  Bowman,  editorial  writer  of  The 
Chronicle,  and  a  colleague  of  Samuel  Seabough ;  Charles  Warren  Stoddard, 
whose  connection  with  The  Chronicle  extended  over  many  years;  Hugh 
Burke  of  the  Call  and  Bulletin ;  Peter  Eobertson,  for  many  years  dramatic 
critic  of  The  Chronicle;  Fred  M.  Somers;  Dan  O'Connell  and  others. 

All  of  these  writers  in  one  way  and  another  contributed  to  the  glorifica- 
tion of  San  Francisco  as  a  place  apart,  and  they  were  auled  and  abetted  by 
the  community  generally,  which  loved  to  be  spoken  of  as  the  metropolis  of 
the  Pacific  Coast,  while  insisting  on  the  retention  of  habits  of 
Liberal  |j£g  gj^^j  modes  of  thought  whicli  contradicted  the  assumption 

o/the  ^'^'^^  ^^^^  ^'^^y  "^^^  thoroughly  cosmopolitan.     As  a  matter  of 

Wire  fact,  it  was  nothing  of  the  sort  during  the  seventies  and  for 

several  decades  after.  That  is  as  almndantly  testified  to  as 
the  other  statement  that  there  was  an  undue  quantity  of  community  adula- 
tion. But,  while  the  people  of  San  Francisco  were  thus  disposed  to  speak 
well  of  themselves,  they  never  lost  interest  in  outsiders.  As  the  city  papers 
grew  prosperous  they  became  patrons  on  a  large  scale  of  the  telegraph 
company,  bringing  extended  reports  of  all  happenings  of  importance  in  the 
East  or  in  Europe.  The  publishers  of  The  Chronicle  thought  that  the 
rejoinder  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher  to  the  charges  made  against  him  by 
Theodore  Tilton  was  interesting  enough  to  warrant  having  the  whole  of  it 
telegraphed,  and,  when  General  Custer  was  killed  by  Indians,  it  devoted 
three  columns  of  special  to  the  tragedy.  It  has  already  been  told  that  when 
George  M.  Pinney  made  his  charges  involving  Secretary  of  the  Navy  Eobe- 
son  and  a  Senator  and  Congressman  that  it  deemed  the  matter  of  enough 
importance  to  have  several  thousand  words  wired  from  Washington.  The 
same  lively  interest  was  manifested  in  European  doings,  the  San  Francisco 
Chronicle  reporting  the  occurrences  of  the  Franco-Prussian  war  as  fully 
as  its  Eastern  contemporaries.  It  can  hardly  be  said  that  the  interest  was 
reciprocal.  When  The  Chronicle  was  being  assailed  by  the  Federal  ring  by 
means  of  criminal  libel  trials,  although  the  testimony  pointed  to  official 


First  Real  Newspaper  Building 


115 


turpitude  in  high  circles  at  the  national  capital,  a  scant  fifty  or  sixty  words 
daily  was  deemed  a  sufficient  number  to  keep  the  Eastern  public  apprised  of 
the  progress  of  an  investigation  of  national  importance.  That  has  always 
been  the  course  pursued  by  the  Eastern  press  in  dealing  with  California 
affairs;  publishers  on  the  other  side  of  the  Eockies  have  permitted  the  cost 
of  long  haul  to  interfere  with  their  judgment  of  the  importance  of  an 
event.  The  San  Francisco  press  very  early  learned  to  be  cosmopolitan  in 
its  treatment  of  news. 


CHAPTER  XV 

PROBLEMS   EAISED     AND   TROUBLES   PRODUCED 
BY   NEW    ORGANIC    LAW. 

Result  of  Adoption  of  Constitution  of  1879 — There  Was  No  Hegira  of  Capital — The 
Last  Big  Mining  Stock  Deal — A  Quietus  on  Stock  Gambling — The  Constitution  's 
Adherents  Were  the  People  of  the  Interior — Greed  of  Agitators  for  Office  an 
Obstacle  to  Realization  of  Benefits — Charles  de  Young  the  Ablest  Newspaper  Man 
Produced  by  San  Francisco — The  Reception  to  General  Grant — It  Enabled  The 
Chronicle  to  Set  the  Pace  in  Reporting — A  World-Beating  Journalistic  Exploit — 
A  People  Proud  of  Their  Paper — Another  Great  Report  of  a  Big  Local  Event — • 
The  Author's  Carnival — The  First  Real  Woman  Journalist — A  Case  of  Make- 
shift Illustration — Renewal  of  Prosperity — The  Crusade  Against  Chinese  Immi- 
gration— Passage  of  the  Exclusion  Act  by  Congress — A  Great  Wheat  Produc- 
ing State — Popularity  of  The  Chronicle's  Annuals — The  Chronicle's  Thorough- 


HE  adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  1879  produced  none  of 
the  dreadful  consequences  predicted  hy  its  opponents. 
Tliere  was  no  hegira  of  capital.  It  is  true  that  a  few 
men  who  had  made  some  money  in  the  mining  stock 
gamble  deserted  San  Francisco,  but  their  departure  was 
due,  not  to  the  operation  of  the  new  fundamental  law, 
but  to  the  fact  that  the  speculative  craze  had  spent  its 
force,  the  depletion  of  the  resources  of  the  people,  and 
the  continued  exposure  of  the  tricks  and  devices  of  the  manipulators  to 
coax  money  from  the  pockets  of  the  dupes  having  effected  something  like 
a  lasting  reform.  There  was  sometliing  like  a  revival  of  the  old-time  excite- 
ment produced  by  a  cleverly  worked  up  interest  in  the  Sierra  Nevada  mine, 
which  caused  its  stock  to  advance  from  a  figure  below  $10  to  upward  of 
$200  in  1879,  but  the  community  generally  did  not  become  much  interested 
in  the  deal,  and  when  it  finally  collapsed  and  the  stock  of  the  company 
dropped  to  less  than  tlie  point  from  which  it  had  started  on  its  upward 
fliglit  few  outside  the  coterie  of  inveterate  gamblers  were  seriously  injured. 
There  were  no  longer  lists  of  suicides  whose  deaths  were  attributed  to  the 
roguery  of  the  men  who  engineered  the  jobs,  and  the  evidences  of  returning 
sanity  multiplied  as  the  months  rolled  on,  and  the  activity  on  the  stock 
boards  decreased  to  such  an  extent  that  the  newspapers  only  followed  the 
transactions  in  a  perfunctory  manner. 

Perhaps  the  hard  times  and  the  legislation  designed  to  prevent  what 
were  called  "wash  sales"  would  have  eventually  made  mining  stock  gambling 
unprofitable,  but  that  end  was  hastened  by  the  persistent  exposure  by  The 
Chronicle  of  the  falsity  of  reports  issued  with  the  object  of  keeping  up  the 
hopes  of  holders  of  shares  of  non-dividend  paying  mines  and  inducing  them 

116  V 


Big  Feat  of  Reporting  117 

to  pay  their  assessments  which  were  levied  with  clock-like  regularity.  The 
most  effective  method  adopted  by  The  Chronicle  in  the  pursuit  of  this 
purpose  was  that  of  showing  just  how  the  money  derived  from 
A  Quietus  assessments  was  expended.  It  was  able  to  show  statistically 
stock  ^^^  otherwise  that  month  after  month,  and  year  after  year, 

Gambling  large  sums  of  money  were  paid  to  high-salaried  officials,  who 

maintained  luxuriously-appointed  offices,  and  that  only  an 
infinitesimal  proportion  of  the  money  collected  was  expended  in  what  was 
called  development  work.  Constant  iteration  of  stories  of  the  same  general 
character  had  the  effect  of  completely  destroying  confidence  in  the  cooked-up 
reports,  and  finally  the  fleecing  business  became  so  unprofitable  that  it  had 
to  be  abandoned.  The  exchanges,  of  which  the  city  had  more  than  its 
share  during  the  height  of  the  bonanza  excitement,  and  for  some  years 
after  those  mines  ceased  to  pay,  were  closed  up  and  brokers  were  obliged  to 
find  their  lambs  in  other  pastures. 

But  the  collapse  of  the  Pine-street  mining  industry  by  no  means  put 
an  end  to  the  real  business  of  extracting  minerals  from  the  soil.     When 
The  Chronicle  was  making  its  most  energetic  assaults  on  the  speculative 
mania  attempts  were  made  to  discredit  its  efforts  by  charging 
M°"n^^  that  it  was  placing  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  development 

Industry  o^  the  resources  of  California,  but  these  accusations  were  met 

Uninjured  in  a  characteristic  manner.  The  Chronicle  showed  by  argu- 
ment and  actual  demonstration  that  the  future  prosperity  of 
the  State  depended  upon  the  development  of  its  varied  resources,  and  that 
it  could  not  hope  to  accomplish  that  object  by  the  process  of  betting.  It 
also  showed  that  the  real  work  of  development  in  the  mines  was  not  being 
forwarded  by  companies  listed  on  the  boards,  the  shares  of  which  were  made 
a  football  of  by  brokers,  but  that  it  was  being  done  by  private  individuals 
who  would  continue  to  extract  gold  after  the  exchanges  had  closed  their 
doors.  And,  taking  a  look  backward,  there  seems  to  have  been  good 
ground  for  this  sound  criticism.  At  least,  it  is  a  matter  of  record  that  as 
early  as  1876  persistent  efforts  were  made  to  interest  San  Francisco  opera- 
tors in  the  development  of  the  oil  industry  in  A'^entura  county,  but  they 
were  unsuccessful  because  of  the  indifference  begotten  by  absorption  in 
stock  jobbing.  It  was  not  even  possible  to  induce  an  investigation  of  the 
possibilities. 

The  death  of  Charles  de  Young  in  1880  removed  from  San  Francisco 
journalism  the  ablest  newspaper  man  the  city  had  produced.  Under  the 
joint  management  of  the  two  brothers  the  paper  had  become  influential  and 
prosperous.  During  his  lifetime  Charles  devoted  himself 
|*°  .  ,  more  particularly  to  the  news  and  editorial  conduct  of  the 
Ablest  News-  paper.  In  the  earlier  part  of  its  career  his  brother,  M.  H., 
paper  Man  had  lent  a  hand  in  every  news  enterprise  of  consequence,  but 
when  the  business  of  the  paper  grew  in  importance  there  was  a 
sharper  division  of  labors,  and  M.  H.  was  compelled  to  give  the  most  of 
his  attention  to  the  finances  and  the  multiplying  duties  of  manager.  On 
the  death  of  his  brother  he  assumed  entire  control,  giving  close  attention  to 
the  details  of  every  department.  The  two  brothers  had  worked  in  such  unison 
that  there  was  no  perceptible  change  in  the  policy  of  the  paper.  Its  career 
of  vigorous  enterprise  was  continued,  and  tendencies  which  had  begun  to 
manifest  themselves  a  few  years  earlier  were  accentuated,  and  The  Chron- 


118  Journalism  in  California 

ifle  soon  became  known  throughout  the  country  as  an  exponent  of  "the 
journalism  that  does  things." 

An  illustration  of  this  propensity  was  furnished  by  the  successful  fight 
made  for  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  1879,  when  the  two  brothers 
were  still  working  together,  and  this  was  closely  followed  by  an  example  of 

enterprise  of  another  kind  which  set  a  pace  in  reporting  that 
g.  proved  a  surprise  to  the  press  of  older  communities,  and 

Feat  of  extorted  the  admission  that  it  surpassed  in  its  thoroughness 

Reporting  any   feat  of   reporting  ever   attempted   by   an   American   or 

European  paper.  The  occasion  which  gave  rise  to  this 
exhibition  was  the  return  of  ex-President  Grant  to  the  United  States  after 
the  completion  of  his  world's  tour.  The  attention  paid  to  him  by  foreign 
potentates  and  peoples  had  proved  a  source  of  intense  gratification  to 
Americans,  and  from  the  moment  the  ship  which  bore  him  from  the  Orient 
to  San  Francisco  was  sighted  outside  the  heads  until  he  reached  his  home 
in  the  East  his  journey  was  a  continuous  ovation.  No  emperor  or  king  had 
ever  before  been  accorded  such  a  triumph.  The  enthusiasm  of  San  Fran- 
cisco was  so  exuberant  it  drew  from  the  phlegmatic  commander  of  great 
armies  the  simple  but  heartfelt  remark  that  it  made  him  feel  at  home.  The 
reception  occurred  on  the  21st  of  September,  1879,  and  on  the  following 
morning  The  Chronicle  devoted  thirty-eight  columns  to  picturesque  descrip- 
tions of  every  detail  of  the  stirring  event.  The  wonderful  water  pageant 
which  embraced  every  vessel  big  and  little  that  dared  venture  outside  the 
heads  was  viewed  from  every  vantage  point ;  on  the  decks  of  ships,  on  the 
headlands  which  form  the  Golden  Gate,  and  even  on  the  vessel  which  bore 
the  voyager  reporters  were  stationed  who  told  about  the  first  greetings  and 
pictured  the  scene  of  the  white  sails  and  the  fluttering  flags,  the  shrieking 
whistles  and  the  clanging  bells  of  the  hundreds  of  welcoming  craft.  The 
procession  through  the  streets  of  the  city  and  the  shouts  of  the  multitude ; 
the  lavish  decorations  of  public  buildings,  stores  and  private  residences 
were  treated  with  equal  thoroughness,  and  Charles  Warren  Stoddard  wrote 
a  poem  of  welcome  worthy  the  occasion. 

Never  was  such  appreciation  of  journalistic  enterprise  shown  before. 
Edition  after  edition  was  printed  to  supply  the  demand  for  copies,  which 
were  mailed  to  all  parts  of  the  earth,  avowedly,  in  most  instances,  because 

the  senders  were  convincd  that  never  before  had  there  been  so 
Proud^  ®  thorough  and  interesting  account  of  a  contemporary  event. 

of  Their  I^  made  San  Franciscans  proud  of  their  city  and  it  put  The 

Paper  Chronicle  on  the  crest  of  the  wave  of  popularity.     The  other 

papers  were  not  unmindful  of  the  importance  of  the  occasion. 
They  printed  accounts  which  would  not  have  been  criticised  had  The 
Chronicle's  comprehensive  treatment  not  completely  overshadowed  them. 
The  Chronicle  was  so  well  satisfied  with  tlie  impression  produced  by  its 
Grant's  reception  edition,  it  ventured  another  stroke  which  more  particu- 
larly interested  San  Francisco.  A  little  over  a  month  later,  to  be  precise, 
on  October  24,  1879,  an  Authors'  Carnival  was  inaugurated  in  the  Mechan- 
ics' Pavilion,  which  was  then  situated  on  the  corner  of  Mission  and  Eighth 
streets.  The  entertainment  was  projected  to  aid  the  charity  organizations 
of  the  city,  and  the  flower  of  the  youth  of  San  Francisco  and  of  its  society 
was  concerned  in  making  it  a  success.  Perhaps  there  were  fully  two 
thousand  who  personated  the  characters  from  the  pages  of  well-known 


CHRONICLE  BUILDING 

Decorated   on   the   occasion   of   reception    of  General   Grant 

on  his  return  from  his  world  tour. 


Big  Feat  of  Reporting  119 

authors,  and  they  all  participated  in  the  procession  which  was  viewed  by 
thousands  of  spectators.  On  the  following  morning  The  Chronicle  appeared 
with  a  five-page  account  of  the  opening  of  the  carnival,  describing  the  pro- 
cession and  the  costumes  of  those  who  took  part  in  it.  As  in  the  case  of 
the  comprehensive  report  of  the  Grant  reception,  The  Chronicle  had  the 
field  to  itself.  Its  rivals  were  not  ungenerous  in  their  allotment  of  space, 
according  it,  in  one  instance,  nearly  two  columns,  and  in  the  other  not  quite 
a  column  and  a  half,  but  those  who  were  interested  in  making  the  enter- 
tainment a  success  felt  assured  that  the  more  than  sixty  thousand  dollars 
netted  for  charity  was  largely  owing  to  The  Chronicle's  liberal  treatment. 
The  report  of  the  Authors'  Carnival  deserves  a  place  in  a  sketch  of 
journalism  for  other  reasons  than  its  length  and  comprehensiveness.  It 
probably  signalized  the  advent  of  women  in  the  field  of  journalism.     The 

major  part  of  the  advance  descriptive  work  of  the  carnival 
^?®  was    done   by    Mrs.    Florence    Apponyi   Longhead,    and   the 

Woman  claim  is  made  for  her  that  she  was  the  first  woman  regularly 

Journalist         employed  on  a  newspaper  to  do  all  around  work.    She  was  on 

the  staff  of  The  Chronicle  several  years  after  1879,  and 
accepted  daily  assignments,  but  did  much  special  work  on  her  own  initiative. 
She  was  a  graceful  writer  and  was  the  winner  of  a  handsome  money  prize 
in  a  best-novel  contest  started  by  the  McClures.  The  occasion  thus  made 
memorable  in  journalistic  annals  also  deserves  recalling  because  of  a 
partially  successful  effort  to  illustrate  the  account.  At  that  time  there 
were  exactly  one  and  a  half  available  engravers  on  wood  in  San  Francisco. 
One  was  efficient  and  sober,  the  other  was  an  excellent  artist,  but  unrelia- 
ble. As  a  result  of  the  latter  shortcoming  the  ambitious  design  of  decorating 
the  opening  of  each  chapter  devoted  to  the  description  of  a  booth  was  not 
fully  realized,  despite  the  search  made  to  eke  out  the  deficiency  with  what 
were  known  as  stock  cuts. 

Mr.  de  Young  having  established  a  reputation  for  thoroughness,  his 
paper  continued  to  seek  occasions  for  its  exhibition.  It  never  afterward 
neglected  an  opportunity  to  display  its  enterprise  along  these  lines.    During 

the  decade  1880-1890  many  such  presented  themselves.  De- 
^^®  spite  the  predictions  made  by  the  antagonists  of  the  Consti- 

of  ^^  tution  that  capital  would  abandon  the  State  and  retard  its 

Prosperity         advancement,  in  the  event  of  its  adoption,  the  decade  was 

not  many  years  old  before  there  were  signs  of  a  return  of 
prosperity.  Just  how  much  the  fact  that  the  organic  law  contained  provi- 
sions which,  if  executed,  would  compel  the  equitable  assessment  and  taxa- 
tion of  property,  it  would  be  difficult  to  say,  but  the  boom  of  the  early 
eighties  synchronizes  with  a  marked  disposition  of  the  holders  of  large 
tracts  of  land  to  subdivide  and  offer  them  for  sale.  It  is  not  impossible  that 
this  phenomenon  might  have  occurred  in  any  event,  but  there  was  a  firm 
conviction  in  California,  which  was  voiced  in  Henry  George's  "Progress  and 
Poverty,"  that  landowners  would  seek  to  add  to  their  acres  rather  than 
diminish  them.  It  was  based  on  the  assumption  that  the  desire  for  the  con- 
sequence and  honors  attached  to  the  possession  of  great  estates  would  prove 
as  irresistible  in  California  as  in  countries  where  the  ownership  of  land  is 
linked  up  with  political  privilege,  and  it  was  to  some  extent  influenced  by 
the  belief  that  coolie  labor  could  be  obtained  in  abundance  to  profitably 
work  large  areas. 


120  Journalism  in  California 

This  latter  illusion  was  effectually  disposed  of  by  the  energetic  crusade 
against  Chinese  immigration,  which  resulted  in  the  passage  of  the  exclusion 
act  by  Congress  in  1882.  But  this  legislation  had  been  preceded  by  an 
expression  of  opinion  secured  by  a  secret  ballot  taken  at  the 
Sntt  election   of    September   3,    1879,   when,   out   of   a   total    of 

Chinese  1G2,000   votes  cast,   only   638   declared  themselves   in  favor 

Immigration  of  the  introduction  of  Chinese  laborers.  It  must  have  been 
ol)vious  to  the  very  few  wlio  entertained  the  belief  that  the 
use  of  cheap  Oriental  labor  would  make  the  farming  of  large  tracts  of  land 
profitable,  that  the  people  of  the  State  would  not  consent  to  its  introduction, 
but,  nevertheless,  a  persistent  agitation  was  kept  up  in  favor  of  the  admis- 
sion of  Chinese  immigrants  which  did  not  cease  until  the  great  national 
parties  were  compelled  to  consider  the  question  in  the  campaign  of  1883. 
The  leaders  then  saw  that  no  party  could  withstand  the  sentiment  which 
would  be  created  by  a  general  discussion  of  the  subject  in  the  Eastern  states, 
and  the  act  of  exclusion  followed.  The  San  Francisco  Chronicle  led  the 
fight  for  exclusion.  It  had  been  advocating  legislation  of  that  character 
long  before  the  sand-lot  uprising,  and  had  succeeded  in  bringing  about  a 
Congressional  inquiry  in  1868,  which  resulted  in  a  report  unfavorable  to  the 
introduction  of  Chinese,  but  no  positive  action  was  taken  by  Congress 
until  1882. 

Probably  a  greater  factor  than  any  other  in  bringing  about  a  better 
state  of  affairs  in  the  early  eighties  was  the  growing  recognition  of  the  fact 
that  the  future  development  of  California  would  be  along  horticultural 
lines.  The  year  1882  was  a  record  year  in  the  production 
California  Was''^"*^  exportation  of  breadstuffs.  At  that  time  Californians 
a  Great  were  pointing  with  pride  to  their  enormous  wheat  fields  and 

Wheat  State  still  clung  to  the  idea  that  they  would  always  prove  the 
State's  greatest  source  of  wealth.  This  view  had  been  adopted 
instead  of  the  one  formerly  held  that  mining  would  remain  the  chief  indus- 
try. It  is  not  surprising  that  such  should  have  been  the  case,  for  in  1882 
breadstuffs  to  the  value  of  $40,138,557  had  been  exported  from  the  port  of 
San  Francisco.  There  had  been  some  success  achieved  in  fruit  growing, 
and  the  railroads  were  beginning  to  realize  the  possibility  of  building  up  a 
great  trade  in  orchard  products.  The  Chronicle  was  assisting  in  the  Avork. 
On  the  1st  of  January,  1884,  it  published  what  it  called  a  "Prosperity 
Issue."  It  was  composed  of  eight  pages,  several  of  which  Avere  devoted  to 
describing  the  advances  made  in  each  of  the  fifty-three  counties  of  the  State 
during  the  preceding  five  years.  Two  pages  were  devoted  to  the  material 
development  of  the  port  and  city  of  San  Francisco.  The  presentation  of 
statistical  matter  at  the  beginning  of  the  3Tar  was  not  an  entirely  new 
feature,  but  with  the  1884  edition  was  inaugurated  the  plan  of  compre- 
hensively surveying  the  growth  of  the  State,  wliich  has  been  continued  down 
to  the  present  time. 

The  principal  characteristic  of  these  annual  editions  was  the  introduction 
of  a  new  mode  of  treatment  each  succeeding  year,  and  a  constant  enlarge- 
ment of  the  volume  of  matter  presented.  Thus  on  the  1st  of  January,  1888, 
the  space  accorded  to  describing  the  development  of  the  State  was  sixteen 
pages,  or  double  that  of  two  years  earlier.  In  the  annual  of  1888,  twenty-two 
full  pages  were  given  up  to  statistics  and  accoimts  of  the  prosperity  of  all 
sections  of  the  State,  and  in  the  following  year  the  number  of  pages  was 


Big  Feat  of  Reporting  121 

increased  to  twenty-three.  Many  of  the  statistical  features  of  earlier  issues 
were  retained,  but  there  was  a  successful  eifort  in  eacli  succeeding  year  to 
introduce  novelties  and  before  the  close  of  the  decade  there 
Chronicle's  ^^'^^  ^  liberal  use  of  illustrations.  In  18!)0  the  annual  con- 
Annuals  sisted  of  forty  pages,  eight  of  which  were  devoted  to  describ- 
ing the  clumges  wrought  in  California  in  forty  years.  Great 
numbers  of  these  papers  were  mailed  to  all  parts  of  the  world, 
it  being  the  practice  of  persons  interested  in  the  development  of  the  State 
to  prepare  lists  of  people  to  whom  they  were  to  be  sent.  The  esteem  in 
which  these  annual  editions  have  always  been  held  is  evidenced  by  the  fact 
that  their  appearance  is  always  followed  by  numerous  letters  to  the  pub- 
lisher urging  that  the  matter  in  them  be  given  permanent  form,  and  for  a 
long  time  they  have  been  the  acknowledged  source  from  which  many 
statistical  bureaus  derive  much  information  concerning  California  and  its 
development. 

Annual  publications  cannot  be  regarded  as  an  innovation  of  j\Ir.  de 
Young,  for  other  papers  had  preceded  it  in  the  presentation  of  statistics  at 
the  beginning  of  tiie  year,  but  the  development  editions  of  The  Chronicle 
took  on  a  form  which  distinguished  them  from  mere  statis- 
ttfe^SJoJSfes  ^^^'^^  records.  They  were,  in  fact,  the  first  well  thought  out 
Qf  plan   of  advertising  the  resources  of  California,  the  object 

California  being  to  present  in  an  attractive  m.anner  information  calcu- 
lated to  arouse  interest  in  the  State,  and  they  accomplished 
their  purpose  admirably.  To  their  dissemination  can  be  traced  much  of 
the  growth  of  the  desirable  immigration  from  the  East,  which  has  since 
resulted  in  developing  tlie  great  industries  of  the  State.  In  the  columns  of 
these  annual  surveys  of  the  growth  of  the  State  will  be  found  appreciations 
of  its  climatic  advantages  which  long  antedate  the  discovery  by  the  boosters 
of  Los  Angeles  that  the  climate  of  California  is  one  of  its  greatest  assets. 
It  is  no  vain  boast  on  the  part  of  The  Chronicle  when  it  asserts  that  it 
induced  the  inhabitants  of  the  once  sleepy  city  of  Los  Angeles  to  make  the 
best  use  of  that  with  which  they  were  so  liberally  endowed  l)y  nature. 

There  is  another  innovation  in  journalism  introduced  l)y  The  Chronicle 
during  the  eighties  deserving  of  more  than  passing  mention.  One  of  the 
charges  brought  against  the  American  press  by  British  critics  was  a  lack  of 
thoroughness,  by  which  was  meant  the  disposition  of  the 
Ch^  ■  1  '  average  writing  editor  to  recognize  that  busy  people  wish  to 
Thoroughness  get  at  the  nub  of  a  proposition  quickly,  the  result  of  which 
was  the  production  of  articles  lacking  in  detail  and  otherwise 
defective.  In  its  thirty-eight  column  report  of  the  reception 
to  Grant,  The  Chronicle  showed  that  it  was  possible  for  an  American  paper 
to  be  thorough.  On  numerous  occasions  afterward  this  exploit  was  matched. 
On  August  19,  1883,  the  Knights  Templar  of  the  United  States  held  their 
triennial  conclave  in  San  Francisco  and  The  Chronicle  signalized  the  meet- 
ing by  publishing  a  history  of  the  order,  which  occupied  seven  pages.  Ap- 
preciative Templars  declared  nothing  of  the  sort  had  ever  been  done  before 
by  a  newspaper.  On  May  14th  of  the  succeeding  year,  the  occasion  being 
the  laying  of  the  cornerstone  of  the  Odd  Fellows'  building  on  the  corner 
of  Seventh  and  ^Market  streets,  the  paper  presented  a  history  of  Odd 
Fellowship  in  America.  On  August  2,  1886,  the  Grand  Army  of  the 
Republic  held  its  annual  encampment  in  San  Francisco.     The  event  sug- 


|00 


Journalism  in  California 


The 

Advocacy 
of 
Principles 


gested  the  writing  of  a  "^'History  of  the  Civil  War,"  which  occupied  102 
columns  of  The  Chronicle,  an  amount  of  matter  which  would  fill  a  good- 
sized  volume.  The  centenary  of  the  death  of  Junipero  Serra,  August  28, 
1884,  was  the  text  for  a  four-page  sketch  of  the  missions  of  California  and 
the  work  of  the  padres. 

These  and  other  serious  efforts  contrihuted  greatly  to  the  reputation 
of  The  Chronicle  and  caused  it  to  be  recognized  as  one  of  the  foremost 
journals  of  America.  From  its  inception,  The  Chronicle  had  been  pro- 
nouncedly Republican.  In  its  infancy,  when  it  still  retained 
the  prefix  "Dramatic,"  it  was  a  strenuous  supporter  of  the 
Union  cause,  and,  when  peace  was  established,  it  remained 
devoted  to  the  party  which  had  preserved  the  integrity  of  the 
Union.  But,  while  there  was  no  mistaking  its  Eepublican 
proclivities,  it  did  not  hesitate  when  occasion  seemed  to  demand  to  criticise 
and  oppose  the  men  who  controlled  the  party.  It  gave  a  significant  example 
of  this  tendency  when  it  unhesitatingly  exposed  the  machinations  of  the 
Federal  ring  in  1877,  and  it  was  unceasing  in  opposition  to  the  domination 
of  the  party  by  the  railroad.  Its  constant  antagonism  to  the  practice  of 
corporation  interference  with  politics  procured  for  it  the  enmity  of  the 
managers  of  the  railroad  and  the  friendship  of  the  people.  It  was,  however, 
a  stanch  believer  in  the  integrity  of  the  Eepublican  national  organization 
and  constantly  advocated  the  theory  that  abuses  could  be  best  dealt  with  by 
effecting  reforms  within  the  party,  and,  because  of  its  devotion  to  that 
principle,  it  achieved  a  degree  of  influence  approached  by  no  paper  outside 
of  the  great  Eastern  cities. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

NOTABLE  INSTANCES  OF  THE  "JOUENALISM  THAT  DOES 

THINGS." 


Slow  Eecognition  of  the  Demand  for  Eegiilation  of  Monopolies — Democratic  De- 
fenders of  the  Eailroads — Eastern  Attitude  Slow  to  Crystallize — The  Frustra- 
tion of  Attempts  to  Eeform — A  Problem  That  California  Might  Have  Success- 
fully Worked  Out — Failure  to  Elect  Honest  Commissions — A  Victim  of  Judge- 
Made  Law — Absurd  Eesults  of  the  Board  of  Equalization  Decision — The  Evils 
of  Non-Partisanism — Political  Career  of  George  Hearst — He  Makes  a  Hand- 
some Present  to  His  Son — Examiner  Passes  Into  Possession  of  William  E. 
Hearst — The  Chronicle 's  Advocacy  of  the  Protective  Policy — A  History  of 
Education  in  the  United  States — Another  Instance  of  the  Journalism  That  Does 
Things — The  Chronicle  Demonstrates  the  Desirability  of  Weather  Warnings  to 
Agriculturists  and  Fruit  Growers — Millions  Saved  to  the  State  by  News- 
paper Enterprise — The  Chronicle  Forms  a  News  Association — Numerous  Patrons 
Served — Chronicle  Press  Association  Absorbed  by  Associated  Press — M.  H.  de 
Young  a  Director  of  Associated  Press  for  Twenty-seven  Years — Illustration 
Growth — Big  Type  in  Heads — Book  Eeviews — Dramatic  Critics — A  Training 
School  for   Statesmen— Noted   Contributors. 

T  MAY  not  be  amiss  to  explain  to  the  reader  who  might 
gain  the  impression  that  the  spotlight  has  been  kept  too 
steadily  on  The  Chronicle  that  it  practically  kept  the 
center  of  the  stage  during  the  eighty  decade,  and  that 
its  rivals  made  little  effort  to  dispute  the  position  it  had 
attained.  Tlie  Alta  had  long  since  ceased  to  be  regarded 
as  a  leading  journal  and  had  become  the  target  of  the 
jokesmith.  Not  that  it  lacked  good  writers,  but  the 
vehicle  for  conveying  what  they  wrote  to  the  reading  public  had  become 
so  impaired  by  the  failure  to  keep  up  to  date  that  it  had  almost  ceased  to 
run.  In  the  later  years  of  its  existence  it  had  become  a  Democratic  organ, 
and  preached  sound  Democratic  doctrine,  some  of  which  placed  in  parallel 
columns  with  the  utterances  of  present-day  papers  would  seem  very  strange. 
That  was  the  period  when  Democratic  editors  wrote  vigorously  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  alleged  Eepublican  tendency  toward  centralization.  The  closing 
years  of  the  eighty  decade  were  made  memorable  by  the  confusion  created 
in  the  minds  of  "Bourbon"  editors  by  the  radical  attitude  of  Senator 
Eeagan  of  Texas,  the  introduction  of  whose  interstate  commerce  bill  was 
coldly  viewed  by  many  of  them  as  an  invasion  of  the  rights  of  the  states, 
but  the  necessity  for  supervision  of  transportation  corporations  had  become 
so  apparent  that  there  was  little  serious  opposition  to  what  is  now  recog- 
nized as  the  Federal  entering  wedge  of  governmental  regulation.    The  Alta, 


123 


124  Journalism  in  California 

and  the  other  Democratic  papers  of  California,  were  slow  to  recognize  this 
feature  of  the  new  legislation,  although  some  of  them,  considering  their 
ownership,  should  have  been  quick  to  perceive  the  outcome  of  a  movement 
which  made  a  national  question  of  what  had  been  a  purely  local  one  up  to 
1887,  when  the  first  interstate  commerce  act  was  passed  by  Congress, 

Before  1887,  there  had  been  plenty  of  discussion  in  the  East  of  the 
])ossibilities  of  railroad  monopoly,  but  it  never  assumed  the  acute  form  it 
took  on  in  California  as  early  as  1871,  when,  as  already  related,  a  conven- 
tion of  electors  in  San  Francisco  openly  denounced  railroad 
Defenders  abuses  and  ^demanded  that  they  should  be  abated.  These 
Railroad  resolutions   almost   passed   unnoticed   in   California.      When 

Monopoly  editors  deigned  to  speak  of  them  they  were  more  apt  than 

otherwise  to  treat  them  disrespectfully  because  of  tlieir  source. 
The  Democratic  press,  in  particular,  adhering  to  the  idea  of  laissez  faire, 
spoke  of  them  as  agrarian  vaporings  or  treated  them  with  silent  inditTerence 
if  not  contempt.  Between  that  date  and  the  adoption  of  the  California 
Constitution  of  1879,  the  discussion  in  the  Eastern  press  was  academic  or 
flippant.  The  growing  tendency  of  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad  to  gain 
favors  by  controlling  Legislatures  did  not  excite  much  indignation,  and  the 
degree  of  alarm  felt  may  be  measured  by  the  fact  that  it  was  regarded  as  a 
stroke  of  facetiae  to  speak  of  New  Jersey  as  "the  State  of  Camden  and 
Amboy,"  thus  delicately  implying  that  the  corporation  which  directed  the 
destinies  of  that  railroad,  which  was  one  of  the  nucleii  of  what  has  since 
become  the  great  Pennsylvania  system,  did  pretty  much  as  it  pleased  in  the 
commonwealth  separated  from  Philadelphia  by  the  river  Delaware.  In 
Massachusetts  some  apprehension  concerning  the  growth  of  monopoly  found 
expression,  and  the  legislators  of  the  Bay  State  thought  they  had  discovered  a 
solution  of  the  problem  when  they  provided  for  a  Commissioner  who  was 
endowed  with  no  powers,  but  was  permitted  to  have  his  learned  reports 
printed  at  the  expense  of  the  State,  which  were  promptly  forgotten  as  soon 
as  issued. 

The  agitation  in  California  had  a  different  outcome.  After  eight  or 
nine  years  of  denunciation  and  demand  for  the  enactment  of  regulative 
legislation,  the  Constitution  of  1879  was  adopted.  It  created  a  Commission 
consisting  of  three  members  and  endowed  it  with  plenary 
Frustraf  on  P"wers,  but  it  proved  no  more  efficacious  in  curbing  the  evils 
of  Attempts  complained  of  than  the  body  which  it  supplanted,  which  could 
to  Reform  only  re])ovt  and  make  recommendations  to  the  Legislature. 
This  result  is  directly  chargeal)le  to  the  hostility  or  indiffer- 
ence of  the  press  which  had  antagonized  the  Constitution  of  1879,  when  it 
was  up  for  adoption.  A^arying  motives  accounted  for  this  unfortunate 
attitude,  and  the  least  creditable  of  them  all  was  that  of  jealousy  of  The 
Chronicle.  Had  not  that  spirit  manifested  itself  the  country  would  have 
been  saved  much  later  turmoil,  for  California  could  have  worked  out  the 
prol)lem  in  such  a  way  that  it  would  not  have  occurred  to  anyone  in 
Congress  to  suggest  the  revolutionary  step  of  breaking  down  the  safeguards 
against  Federal  encroachment,  which  the  wisdom  of  the  fathers  had  pro- 
vided. It  was  decreed  otherwise,  however,  for  as  soon  as  the  victory  had 
been  gained  by  the  people,  the  railroad  at  once  set  to  work  to  prevent  its 
fruits  l)eing  gathered.  By  clever  manipulation  it  succeeded  in  having  venal 
Commissioners  elected,  and  also  Legislatures  which  were  quite  ready  to  tie 


Training  School  for  Statesmen  125 


the  hands  of  the  solons,  if  they  showed  any  disposition  to  break  tlirough 
the  restraints  imposed  by  the  corporation. 

The  provisions  of  the  Constitution  whicli  would  have  enabled  an  honest 
Commission  to  carry  out  every  reform  contemplated,  and  which  would  have 
anticipated  later  legislation  in  this   State  and  made  Federal   interference 
pi"at-tically  unnecessary,  were  permitied  to  fall  into  desuetude, 
to  Choose  ^^  ^'^^^  ^^^^  *^^°^^  relating  to  the  State  Board  of  Equalization, 

Honest  which  were  designed  to  prevent  the  unecpial  assessment  of 

Commissions  land.  So  indifferent  were  the  people  to  what  they  had  gained 
that  they  allowed  their  courts  to  read  a  meaning  into  the 
Constitution  for  which  there  was  no  warrant  in  the  words  or  spirit  of  that 
instrument.  The  express  object  of  the  creation  of  the  State  Board  of 
Equalization  was  to  correct  the  abuse  of  assessing  the  land  of  a  person  or 
corporation  at  a  figure  lower  than  that  at  which  land  of  equal  value  and 
similarly  situated  had  been  assessed  to  others.  This  was  provided  for  in 
unmistakable  language,  but  the  courts  deliberately  held  that  the  organic 
law  did  not  mean  what  it  said,  and  set  up  the  absurd  rule  that  the  State 
Board  could  not  raise  or  lower  individual  assessments,  but  would  have  to 
correct  inequalities  by  raising  or  lowering  the  entire  roll' of  a  county  or 
counties.  This  produced  the  absurd  anomaly  of  raising  the  value  of  gold 
coin  and  mortgages,  and  it  became  necessary  to  remedy  the  inconsistency 
by  amendment.  The  amendment  did  not  abate  tlie  evil,  but  it  converted 
the  State  Board  of  Equalization  into  a  machine  which  could  be  and  was 
used  to  punish  the  taxpayers  of  one  part  of  the  State  to  relieve  those  of 
another  part.  In  the  end,  relief  was  found  by  practically  converting  the 
State  Board  into  a  body  whose  most  important  duty  now  is  to  compute  the 
gross  earnings  of  corporations  in  order  to  determine  how  much  they  must 
pay  into  the  treasury. 

The  attempt  to  arouse  the  people  from  the  indifference  into  which  they 
had  fallen  occupied  a  great  deal  of  space  in  the  editorial  columns  of  The 
Chronicle,  but  naturally  it  proved  unavailing.     It  is  difficult  to  place  the 
blame  for  this  miscarriage.     Partisan  politics  is  sometimes 
^^?  held   responsible,   but   in   view   of  the   fact   that   those   who 

j]-on-  benefited  by  the  laxity  of  the  courts,  the  venality  of  com- 

Partisanism  missions  and  the  turpitude  of  Legislatures  were  strictly  non- 
partisan in  their  manipulations,  the  charge  is  manifestly 
absurd.  It  was  not  partisanism,  but  popular  indifference  that  did  the  mis- 
chief. Had  the  same  active  interest  been  manifested  when  times  became 
better  that  was  shown  during  the  period  when  depression  operated  to  pro- 
duce sand-lot  troubles  and  widespread  discontent  among  farmers,  the  out- 
come would  have  been  vastly  different.  It  is  impossible  to  keep  interest  at 
concert  pitch  when  times  are  good,  for  then  common  sense  and  warnings 
of  all  kinds  are  treated  as  were  those  of  Cassandra  of  old.  Perhaps  that 
explains  why  The  Chronicle  enjoyed  a  monopoly  of  the  dubious  privilege 
of  finding  fault.  Whether  it  does  or  not,  the  fact  remains  that  it  alone  of 
the  daily  papers  of  San  Francisco  unceasingly  denounced  the  failure  to 
enforce  the  provisions  of  the  new  Constitution.  Not  that  much  would  have 
been  gained  had  the  attitude  of  the  remainder  of  the  press  been  different. 
As  already  stated,  the  Alta  had  declined  in  prestige  so  greatly  it  was  said 
of  its  editorial  columns  that  they  were  a  safe  repository  for  secrets.  The 
Call  and  Bulletin  had  committed  themselves  so  absolutely  to  the  assump- 


126  Journalism  in  California 

tion  that  the  Constitution  was  utterly  bad  it  would  have  been  ludicrous  for 
them  to  champion  anything  in  it,  no  matter  how  thoroughly  its  wisdom 
might  have  been  approved.  The  Evening  Post  had  already  entered  on  its 
career  of  alternation  of  ownership,  which  implied  a  power  behind  the 
throne,  and  the  Examiner  was  too  entirely  devoted  to  the  higher  politics 
to  interest  itself  greatly  in  such  matters  as  the  regulation  of  corporations. 

The  Examiner  did  not  appear  as  a  morning  paper  until  October,  1880, 
when  it  passed  out  of  the  ownership  of  Philip  Eoach  and  his  associates 
and  nominally  passed  into  the  possession  of  W.  T.  Baggett.     It  was  soon 
transferred  by  him  to  the  Examiner  Publishing  Company,  of 
Examiner  which  George  Hearst  was  the  head.      There  was  no  secret 

Property  of  concerning  the  object  of  its  acquisition.  Mr.  Hearst  had 
W.  R.  Hearst  political  ambitions,  and  believed  that  they  could  be  attained 
most  easily  with  the  assistance  of  a  personal  organ.  He  was 
a  member  of  the  California  Assembly  in  1865  and  in  1882  he  was  an 
unsuccessful  candidate  for  the  Democratic  nomination  for  Governor.  In 
1885  he  obtained  the  complimentary  vote  of  the  Democratic  minority  in 
the  Legislature,  and  on  March  23d  of  that  year  he  was  appointed  to  fill  the 
vacancy  created  by  the  death  of  Senator  John  F.  Miller,  but  the  Republican 
Legislature  did  not  permit  him  to  till  out  the  unexpired  term,  electing 
A.  P.  Williams  in  his  stead.  But  in  January,  1887,  he  had  his  innings,  the 
Democratic  majority  sending  him  to  Washington  to  represent  California  in 
the  upper  house  of  Congress.  On  March  4,  1887,  Senator  Hearst  signalized 
the  occasion  of  taking  his  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate  by  turning  over 
the  Examiner  to  his  son,  William  Randolph  Hearst.  During  the  period 
preceding  the  accession  of  William  R.,  the  Examiner  was  run  on  substan- 
tially the  same  lines  as  those  followed  in  its  previous  career.  Its  managing 
editor  was  Clarence  Greathouse,  better  known  as  a  genial  gentleman  and  a 
clever  politician  than  as  a  newspaper  man.  Perhaps  he  recognized  this  fact, 
for  he  subsequently  abandoned  the  profession  and  became  the  confidential 
adviser  of  the  Emperor  of  Corea,  graduating  from  the  United  States  Con- 
sul Generalship  into  that  position.  While  Mr.  Greathouse  was  in  charge  of 
the  Examiner  it  was  always  stanchly  Democratic  and  was  never  guilty  of 
straying  from  the  straight  path. 

The  Chronicle  on  national  issues  after  1880  was  always  Republican. 
It  had  before  that  time  exhibited  its  devotion  to  the  principles  of  protection, 
but  as  the  years  wore  on,  and  California  began  to  build  up  its  great  horti- 
cultural industry,  it  began  to  urge  more  strongly  than  ever 
A  Leading  ^^^^  desirability  of  the  State,  arraying  itself  on  the  side  of  the 
the  Protective  P^rty  that  could  be  depended  upon  to  secure  for  the  citrus 
Policy  fruit  growers  and  the  producers  of  prunes  the  same  advan- 

tages which  the  Eastern  commonwealths  had  derived  from 
the  protection  of  manufactured  articles.  The  Chronicle  was  not  very 
sanguine  that  the  policy  would  have  any  appreciable  effect  upon  the  devel- 
opment of  manufactures  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  for  it  recognized  that  a  large 
near-by  market  was  essential  to  the  profitable  pursuit  of  the  industry,  but 
it  was  convinced  that  the  State  would  profit  by  creating  a  great  home 
market  for  its  products,  and,  therefore,  urged  with  vigor  and  all  the  argu- 
ments at  its  command  that  prosperous  ironworkers  in  Pennsylvania  and 
other  Eastern  states  would  result  in  the  creation  of  big  armies  of  consumers 
of  prunes,  oranges  and  other  fruits.    It  did  not  content  itself  with  repeating 


Training  School  for  Statesmen  127 

the  stock  arguments  of  the  protectionists,  but  displayed  tlie  same  thorough- 
ness in  its  investigation  of  this  great  problem  as  it  had  shown  in  other 
fields.  As  early  as  the  campaign  which  resulted  in  the  election  of  Garfield, 
the  subject  was  treated  in  all  its  aspects,  and  in  the  succeeding  years  it 
became  recognized  as  one  of  the  foremost  exponents  of  the  protective  policy 
and  its  articles  on  the  subject  were  widely  quoted.  In  the  campaign  of 
1888,  it  devoted  eight  pages  of  a  special  protection  edition  to  a  history  of 
the  operations  of  the  protective  tariff  in  the  United  States,  which  was  spoken 
of  in  Congress  as  the  most  thorough  presentation  of  the  subject  ever  made 
in  the  columns  of  a  newspaper. 

The  fact  that  The  Chronicle  devoted  much  space  to  the  elucidation  of 
the  tariff  problem,  and  that  its  proprietor,  M.  II.  de  Young,  began  very 
early  to  be  recognized  as  a  factor  in  national  politics,  being  fretpiently 

chosen  as  a  National  Committeeman  and  as  a  delegate  to  the 
j~f        ,  national  conventions  of  the  Eepublican  party,  did  not  have 

of  The  ^''G  effect  of  making  an  organ  of  the  paper.     It  steadily  and 

Chronicle  consistently  advocated  the  vital  principles  of  Republicanism, 

but  unhesitatingly  criticised  what  it  regarded  as  abuses  within 
the  part}'.  It  was  zealous  and  untiring  in  a  campaign,  but  never  took  orders 
or  looked  for  any  reward  other  than  the  satisfaction  derived  from  being  on 
what  it  conceived  to  be  the  right  side.  It  believed  in  a  paper  clearly 
enunciating  its  principles,  and  unhesitatingly  characterized  as  a  mischievous 
tendency  the  disposition  to  get  rid  of  party  responsibility  by  the  device  of 
non-partisanism,  which  it  urged  was  usually  a  cloak  for  carrying  out  designs 
which  could  not  receive  a  formal  indorsement  from  any  body  of  men  desir- 
ous of  upholding  a  principle.  But  these  convictions  were  urged  in  the  same 
manner  and  with  the  same  object  that  it  published  its  "History  of  Educa- 
tion" on  July  17,  1888,  on  the  occasion  of  the  meeting  of  the  National 
Educational  Association  in  this  city.  It  believed  it  was  performing  a  public 
service  in  devoting  eight  pages  to  that  subject,  and  felt  that  its  publication 
would  reflect  credit  on. the  community,  whose  support  made  possible  so 
voluminous  a  treatment  in  a  daily  paper  of  so  vital  a  subject. 

In  the  preceding  chapters  many  instances  of  "the  journalism  that  does 
things"  have  been  presented,  but  none  transcends  in  importance  and  perma- 
nent value  the  part  played  by  The  Chronicle  in  broadening  the  operations 

of  what  is  now  kno\\Ti  as  the  Weather  Bureau,  but  which  in 
^^®  1887  was  a  corps  of  the  United  States  Army,  known  as  the 

That  Does  Signal  Service.  Meteorology  was  then  an  undeveloped  sci- 
Things  cnce.     It  would  not  be  accurate  to  say  that  it  was  in  its 

infancy,  for  it  had  occupied  the  attention  of  many  students 
for  a  long  lime,  but  the  practical  results  of  their  studies  at  this  time 
extended  no  further  than  the  issuance  of  maritime  warnings  which  kept 
sailors  from  putting  to  sea  when  a  storm  was  brewing,  and  predictions  con- 
sulted by  the  credulous  who  wished  to  know  whether  it  was  j)rudent  to  go 
abroad  without  an  umbrella,  or  prospective  picnickers  who  w^ere  anxious 
concerning  the  state  of  the  weather.  But  there  were  men  in  the  Signal 
Service  who  had  great  faith  that  meteorology  with  proper  encouragement 
would  some  day  be  developed  into  an  exact  science,  whose  workings  would 
prove  of  incalciilable  l)enefit  to  mankind.  Among  these  believers  was  Lieu- 
tenant, now  Colonel.  "W.  A.  Classford  of  the  United  States  Army,  who  was 
then  in  charge  of  the  branch  of  the  Signal  Service  having  its  headquarters 

13 


128  Journalism  in  California 

in  San  Francisco.  Lieutenant  Glassford's  duties  brought  him  into  contact 
with  The  Chronicle,  and  he  succeeded  in  imparting  some  of  his  enthusiasm 
to  the  paper,  which  undertook  the  costly  experiment  of  demonstrating  that 
the  weather  warnings  could  be  made  as  useful  to  the  agriculturist  on  land 
as  to  the  mariner  who  goes  down  to  the  sea  in  ships. 

The  Chronicle  had  long  been  engaged  in  the  work  of  stimulating  the 
orchard  and  vineyard  industries  of  California  and  had  made  a  study  of  the 
drawbacks  attendant  upon  the  culture  of  citrus  fruits  and  grapes.  In  com- 
mon with  everyone  who  gave  the  matter  attention,  it  recog- 
^^®  .  .  ,  nized  that  if  the  science  of  meteorology  could  be  developed 
Weather  to  the  stage  that  would  permit  forecasts  to  be  made  a  sufficient 

Warnings  time  in  advance  to  allow  warnings  to  be  sent  to  producers 

much  might  be  done  to  minimize  the  hazards  of  the  horti- 
cultural and  viticultural  industries.  Lieutenant  Glassford  was  confident 
that  storms  and  low  temperatures  could  be  foretold  sufficiently  long  in 
advance  of  their  coming  to  admit  of  proper  precautions  against  injury.  But 
the  question  was :  How  can  the  warnings  be  got  to  those  interested?  It  was 
at  this  stage  of  the  meteorological  game  that  The  Chronicle  stepped  into 
the  breach.  The  Federal  Government  had  not  been  unduly  liberal  in 
making  appropriations  for  the  weather  branch  of  the  Signal  Service,  and  it 
was  obliged  to  hew  close  to  the  line  in  its  operations.  A  sum  was  provided 
for  a  fixed  number  of  observers,  for  the  rental  of  quarters  and  for  the  pur- 
chase of  instruments,  but  there  was  no  provision  made  for  sending  out 
warnings  by  telegraph  or  otherwise.  There  was  no  order,  however,  inter- 
fering with  the  making  of  experiments,  provided  that  they  involved  no  draft 
on  the  Treasury,  and  when  the  suggestion  was  made  to  Lieutenant  Glassford 
that  a  demonstration  be  made  of  the  feasibility  and  value  of  land  warnings, 
he  was  quick  to  embrace  the  opportunity  which  The  Chronicle  offered  him 
to  prove  that  the  service  could  be  made  highly  beneficial  to  the  horticultural 
interests  of  the  State. 

A  scheme  was  mapped  out  which  required  the  active  co-operation  of  the 
communities  to  be  benefited.     In  addition  to  the  stations  where  volunteer 
and  regular  observers  had  already  been  provided  with  the  necessary  instru- 
ments, a  large  additional  number  of  stations  were  created. 
How  *^6  ^j^g  volunteer  observers  of  which  were  expected  to  make  the 

Warned  by  readings  and  perform  the  simple  duties  connected  with  the 
The  Chronicle  carrying  out  of  the  plan,  the  principal  feature  of  which  was 
the  posting  of  warnings  which  were  to  be  sent  from  San 
Francisco  by  telegraph.  For  the  purpose  of  displaying  these  warnings  The 
Chronicle  had  constructed  neat  frames  of  tin  properly  glassed  to  protect 
the  bulletins  from  the  weather.  In  all,  there  were  nearly  one  hundred  of 
these  bulletin  boards  provided,  on  which  were  daily  displayed  the  weather 
predictions  of  the  chief  signal  officer  in  San  Francisco.  Local  interest  in 
their  dissemination  was  so  great  that  steps  were  taken  promptly  to  utilize 
the  information,  and  by  various  devices,  such  as  the  raising  of  flags,  blowing 
of  whistles,  etc.,  the  countryside  was  quickly  acquainted  with  impending 
changes.  The  demonstration  was  a  thorough  success,  and  was  made  at  great 
cost  to  Mr.  de  Young.  It  was  continued  during  three  months,  and  before 
its  conclusion  Congress  was  being  bombarded  by  the  horticultural  and 
other  interests  of  California  to  maintain  it  permanently.  The  response  was 
not  as  swift  as  it  might  have  been,  perhaps  because  the  predecessor  of  Gen- 


o 


WtATHER  InDICATTONS 

-FURNISHED  DAILY  BYTOE 

SflNFRANCKCOCHRONICLE 


M 

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1 


Mm  I  >i  I  li  >  >  I  M  •  I  k  t    t    >  a 

SAN  FRAliClSCO  CHROMIC  LE: 

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FOKCAUroKNIA 


I  I  H  1  V,  I'  '    I  I   I    I   /    M   t  I    »  I  »   t   1     », 


I 


BULLETIN   BOARD   OF   WEATHER   SERVICE 
Started  by  Chronicle  in   1885   to  demonstrate   the  feasibi 
giving-    timely    warnings    to    the    agriculturists    of    Cali 
subsequently  adopted  by  the  Government. 


lity  of 
fornia, 


Training  School  for  Statesmen  129 


eral  Greely  did  not  take  a  lively  interest  in  the  matter.  When  that  officer 
came  to  the  head  of  the  service  he  framed  a  report  which  was  considered  hy 
Congress  and  acted  on  in  a  half-hearted  way.  General  Greely  dwelt  wit'h 
emphasis  on  what  had  been  accomplished  by  The  Chronicle  and  urged  an 
appropriation  which  would  permit  the  continuance  of  the  service  along  the 
same  lines.  He  obtained  some  recognition,  out  of  which  has  grown  the 
system  of  warnings  which  annually  pave  large  sums  to  California  growers, 
but,  to  quote  the  opinion  of  G.  H.  Wilson,  the  local  forecaster,  the  service  is 
still  a  long  way  from  conferring  all  the  benefits  which  we  might  be  deriving 
if  The  Chronicle's  scheme  had  been  carried  out  in  its  entirety. 

Turning  from  the  contemplation  of  a  bit  of  newspaper  enterprise  of 
the  kind  yclept  "the  journalism  that  does  things,"  it  will  be  instructive  to 
recount  the  development  of  the  telegraphic  news  service  of  the  San  Fran- 
.     .  Cisco   press.      Incidentally,   the   recital   may   clear   up   some 

News^"^  purposely    created    obscurities    concerning   the    organization 

From  the  familiarly  known   as  the   Associated   Press.     When   Mr.   do 

East  Young   entered   the   journalistic   field   his   finances   did   not 

permit  him  to  entertain  the  notion  of  carrying  a  regular 
telegraphic  service,  but  with  the  growtb  of  his  paper  and  attendant  pros- 
perity he  began  to  study  methods  of  keeping  its  readers  in  touch  with  the 
rest  of  the  world.  It  was  open  to  The  Chronicle,  of  course,  to  bring  a 
special  report  from  the  East,  but  that  precluded  anything  like  an  extrava- 
gant display  of  news  by  wire.  There  are  traces  in  its  columns  of  that 
curious  idea  that  there  is  something  about  the  gathering  of  news  whicli 
makes  combinations  to  that  end  a  public  matter  in  which  any  one  desirous 
of  doing  so  should  be  permitted  to  enjoy  the  specially  created  facilities. 
But  that  attitude  did  not  endure  long.  The  Call,  the  Bulletin  and  the 
Sacramento  Union  had  associated  themselves  together  for  the  purpose  of 
bringing  to  the  Coast  the  news  gathered  by  the  New  York  Associated  Press, 
one  of  the  several  associations  formed  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  news  to 
the  papers  of  the  sections  in  which  they  operated.  There  was  no  possibility 
of  breaking  into  this  combination,  so  The  Chronicle  secured  a  report  from 
an  organization  called  the  American  Press  Association,  which  was  brought 
over  the  wires  of  the  Union  and  Central  Pacific  Eailroad.  This  company 
was  known  as  the  Pacific  Telegraph  Company,  and  was  energetically  seek- 
ing business,  and  the  result  was  a  fairly  good  service,  but  not  comparable 
with  that  furnished  by  the  Associated  Press  of  New  York. 

After  a  long  struggle.  The  Chronicle  secured  a  franchise  from  the  New 
York  Associated  Press.  This  involved  the  bringing  of  a  report  from  the 
East,  the  entire  expense  of  which  had  to  be  borne  by  the  paper  until  it 

organized  a  news  service  of  its  own,  under  the  title  of  the 
M^H.deYoungQj^^Qj^j^jg  p^pgg  Association.  Very  early  in  its  career  The 
Associated  Chronicle  had  begun  effectively  to  cover  the  news  of  the 
Press  Pacific  Coast.     It  w^s  thus  placed  in  a  position  to  serve  a 

report  to  its  clients,  covering  the  whole  field  of  news  when 
it  obtained  its  franchise  from  the  New  York  Associated  Press  in  1875.  It 
soon  had  numerous  customers,  among  them  the  San  Francisco  Examiner, 
the  Evening  Post,  the  San  Jose  Mercury,  the  Oakland  Tribune,  the  Sacra- 
mento Bee  and  the  Portland,  Oregon,  News.  About  ISSl,  the  Western 
Associated  Press,  which  up  to  that  time  had  maintained  relations  with  the 
New  York  Associated  Press,  resolved  to  act  as  an  independent  o^ganizatio^ 


130  Journalism  in  California 

and  sought' to  effect  alliances  which  would  strengthen  it  sufficiently  to  make 
it  a  national  organization  of  great  strength.  Overtures  were  made  to  The 
Chronicle  to  take  over  its  association,  the  business  of  which  was  not  very 
profitable  and  was  attended  with  some  inconveniences  and  annoyance. 
M.  H.  de  Young  went  to  Chicago  and  was  at  once  made  a  member  of  the 
Western  Associated  Press.  Before  the  Chronicle  Press  Association  ceased 
to  exist,  Mr.  de  Young  stipulated  that  his  clients  should  receive  the  reports 
of  the  Eastern  organization.  Subsequently,  he  was  elected  a  director  and 
continued  to  serve  in  that  capacity  for  twenty-seven  years,  during  the  period 
in  which  it  was  developing  into  the  greatest  news-gathering  association  in 
the  world. 

The  most  notable  change  in  journalistic  methods  during  the  eighties 
of  the  nineteenth  century  was  the  growing  disposition  to  use  pictures.  lief- 
erence  has  been  made  to  early  efforts  in  tiiat  direction,  but  they  never 

developed  into  a  steady  feature.  The  facetious  were  still  in- 
o?th?'^°^*^  clined  as  late  as  1885  to  charge  that  the  portrait  of  Lydia 
Illustration  Pinkham,  which  appeared  in  the  advertising  columns  of  most 
Habit  dailies  of  the  period,  was  made  to  do  duty  as  a  representation 

of  all  sorts  of  celebrities  "without  regard  to  sex,  color  or 
previous  condition  of  servitude."  There  is  a  tradition  in  the  artroom  of 
The  Chronicle  that  a  timid  effort  to  illustrate  reading  matter  begun  in 
1880  was  abandoned  because  of  the  ribald  jokes  and  the  insistent  prediction 
that  all  efforts  to  produce  passably  decent  pictures  in  papers  printed  on 
rapid  perfecting  presses  must  fail.  Whatever  the  cause,  it  is  a  fact  that 
Sunday  illustrations  were  dropped  for  several  years.  In  June,  1885,  there 
was  a  sudden  outburst  of  artistic  energy  and,  after  that  date,  pictures  were 
regularly  printed  in  the  Sunday  magazine  section  and  sometimes  appeared 
in  the  daily.  On  January  1,  1887,  The  Chronicle  annual  appeared  with  a 
full-page  map  of  California  and  some  fifty  illustrations  of  business  houses 
and  manufacturing  plants  of  San  Francisco.  By  this  time  the  use  of  illus- 
trations in  the  daily  had  become  common,  and  tbey  were  growing  in  size,  a 
fact  which  testifies  that  the  editor  was  becoming  hardened  to  criticism,  or 
that  the  art  had  really  advanced  sufficiently  to  destroy  the  point  of  the 
Lydia  Pinkham  joke. 

The  ability  to  turn  out  cuts  quickly  enough  to  make  them  available  for 
use  in  a  daily  paper  was  due  to  the  adoption  of  what  came  to  be  known  as 
the  chalk  process,  an  invention  attributed  to  Mark  Twain.     Although  the 

author  had  taken  out  a  patent,  it  later  developed  tliat  the 
Progress  process  had  been  successfully  used  in  England  many  years 

Newspapei-  earlier.  It  had  no  advantage  over  the  wood  cut,  except  in  the 
Illustration       matter  of  rapidity  of  production.     In  the  preparation  of  a 

wood  cut  the  artist  made  a  pencil  drawing  upon  box  wood, 
which  was  cut  in  relief  by  an  engraver,  and  from  this  it  was  necessary  to 
secure  an  electrotype,  which  had  to  be  properly  mounted  to  make  it  avail- 
able for  use  on  a  rapid  press.  In  the  chalk  process,  the  artist  drew  his 
picture  with  a  bent  steel  needle  on  a  steel  plate  covered  with  a  thin  layer 
of  precipitated  chalk  and  white  clay.  The  drawing  once  finished  the  plate 
was  ready  for  stereotyping  without  further  preparation.  It  was  a  great 
time-saving  method,  a  block  being  easily  made  ready  for  the  chase  in  less 
than  twenty  minutes.  But  it  had  its  disadvantages.  The  artists  found  the  work 
of  scratching  the  chalk-covered  plates  very  disagreeable,  and  its  use  placed 


Training  School  for  Statesmen  131 


all  sorts  of  limitations  u})on  them.  There  was  no  opportunity  to  use  pen  or 
brush  and  freedom  of  execution  was  entirely  out  of  the  question.  The 
process,  however,  was  speedily  superseded  by  the  resort  to  zinc  etching, 
which  permitted  more  liberties  to  the  artist.  At  first  only  pen  drawings  on 
Bristol  board  were  used  when  this  method  was  employed.  These  drawings 
were  photographed  and  printed  on  sensitized  sheets  of  zinc  and  etched  with 
nitric  acid;  the  part  to  receive  the  impression  was  a  high  relief,  and 
specially  devised  machines  were  used  to  cut  away  the  superfluous  metal. 
This  method,  introduced  in  1890,  was  in  vogue  until  1898,  when  photo 
engraving  took  its  place.  By  tliis  method,  pliotographs,  wash  drawings, 
paintings  and  water  colors  are  reproduced  directly.  The  copying  by  camera 
was  done  by  interposing  a  finely-ruled  glass  screen.  After  transferring  the 
image  thus  obtained  to  zinc  and  etching  it  a  block  was  produced  ready  for 
the  printer.  In  the  earlier  stages  of  tlie  photo  engraving  process  screens 
ruled  too  finely  were  employed,  and  the  subsequent  stereotyping  process 
resulted  in  the  filling  up  of  the  lines.  This  difficulty  was  over'-ome  in  a 
measure  by  inserting  the  zinc  plates  directly  into  the  stereotype  plate.  Tiiis 
took  more  time  than  could  be  spared  in  regular  daily  editions,  so  the  plan 
of  printing  direct  from  the  etched  zinc  was  confined  to  the  pictures  for 
Sunday  editions  and  a  coarser  screen  was  used  for  quick  work. 

Although  the  use  of  pictures  grew  rapidly  toward  the  close  of  the 
eighties,  the  tendency  to  employ  large  display  type  in  the  construction  of 
heads  was  not  very  marked.    There  were  some  departures  from  the  uniform 

style  prevalent,  but  they  were  not  pronounced  enough  to 
Advertiser  attract  general  attention.  While  the  uniform  method  of 
and  heading   articles   was    maintained,    it   was   possible    for   the 

Big  Type  editor  who  "made  up"  the  paper  to  arrange  his  matter  so 

that  the  reader  could  easily  find  the  sort  of  news  in  which 
he  was  specially  interested.  The  later  resort  to  what  is  called  "freaking^' 
has  made  this  impossible.  The  insistence  of  the  advertiser  upon  having  his 
announcements  printed  alongside  of  reading  matter  has  helped  to  con- 
tribute to  this  result,  and  the  most  ingenious  "maker  up"  no  longer 
attempts  to  mass  matter  of  the  same  sort,  and  feels  happy  if  his  skill  is 
adequate  to  the  task  of  presenting  a  story  in  unbroken  sequence.  It  is 
urged  in  favor  of  tlie  new  method  that  a  busy  generation  refuses  to  take 
the  trouble  to  read  a  description  of  any  length  and  that,  therefore,  it  is 
desirable,  if  not  absolutely  essential,  to  give  as  much  information  as  possiljle 
in  heads,  the  type  of  which  should  be  large  enough  to  arrest  the  attention  of 
the  indifferent  as  well  as  the  real  seeker  after  news. 

During  the  eighties  there  was  a  marked  accession  of  capable  writers  and 
newspaper  men  in  San  Francisco,  many  of  whom  were  graduated  from 
The  Chronicle  on  to  other  papers.    There  were  no  colleges  of  journalism  in 

those  days,  but  The  Chronicle  had  achieved  a  reputation  as 
Q°™®  an  excellent  training  school,  and  a  long  list  of  men  who  were 

Time  oiice  on  its  staff  and  later  achieved  success  in  running  papers 

Writers  of  their  own  could  be  quoted.    The  destruction  of  the  records 

of  The  Chronicle  and  other  newspaper  offices  renders  it 
difficult  to  present  anything  like  an  accurate  "Who  Was  Who"  in  journalism 
at  this  particular  time,  but  tiie  names  of  several  of  the  best-known  come 
readily  to  the  mind  of  old-timers.  Frank  M.  Pixley  was  still  firing  at  his 
chosen  targets  on  the  Argonaut;  D.  F.  Verdenal  was  writing  snappy  para- 


132  Journalism  in  California 

graphs  for  the  Stock  Exchange;  J.  F.  Bowman,  for  many  years  an  editorial 
writer  for  The  Chronicle,  continued  with  the  paper  until  his  death  in  1884; 
E.  J.  Andersen,  for  many  years  private  secretary  for  Charles  de  Young, 
found  time  to  write  on  naval  subjects,  and  to  organize  the  library  of  The 
Chronicle  on  a  basis  which  made  it  one  of  the  best-known  sources  of  con- 
temporary information  in  the  country.  Mr.  Andersen  is  still  in  harness, 
and  enjoys  the  distinction  of  having  been  connected  with  the  editorial  end 
of  a  newspaper  longer  than  any  other  man  in  San  Francisco.  George 
Hamlin  Fitch  came  to  The  Chronicle  from  the  New  York  Tribune  in  1880, 
and  his  work  still  delights  the  readers  of  the  paper.  He  has  been  its  book 
reviewer  for  nearly  thirty  years,  and  he  is  acknowledged  to  be  one  of  the 
best  and  fairest  of  American  critics.  His  duties  though  onerous  have  not 
prevented  his  entering  the  literary  field  in  the  capacity  of  author,  and  it 
takes  a  good-sized  shelf  to  hold  the  books  which  bear  his  name  on  their 
title  pages. 

Before  Mr.  Fitch  took  charge  of  the  book  reviews  of  the  paper  that 
department  was  under  the  charge  of  Albert  Sutliffe,who  combined  the 
duties  of  dramatic  and  literary  critic.  Mr.  Sutlilfe  was  a  versatile  writer 
and  frequently  contributed  editorials  and  special  articles.  He 
Dramatic  shared  the  ambition  of  the  newspaper  man  of  the  period  and 

Reviewers  of  ^vlien  the  French  made  war  on  China  he  went  to  Toncjuin 
The  Chronicle  for  The  Chronicle  as  its  special  correspondent.  Mr.  Sutlilfe 
was  succeeded  by  Piercy  Wilson,  an  English  writer,  with  a 
taste  for  dramatic  criticism,  which  he  combined  with  a  love  of  sport.  He 
was  assisted  by  Thomas  J.  A^ivian,  now  with  the  Hearst  papers  in  ISTew 
York.  Vivian  was  gifted  with  a  vivid  imagination,  which  enabled  him  to 
conceive  the  impossible  and  describe  it  as  an  actuality  in  a  convincing 
manner.  He  wrote  many  special  articles  for  the  Sunday  Chronicle,  and 
struck  a  novel  note  as  often  as  any  writer  for  the  American  press.  He  was 
an  especially  forceful  dramatic  critic,  and  had  an  astonishing  familiarity 
with  the  literature  of  the  stage.  In  the  early  eighties,  Peter  Eobertsou 
became  the  dramatic  critic  of  The  Chronicle,  a  position  filled  by  him  for 
nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Mr.  Robertson  had  the  faculty  of  telling 
the  truth  without  irritating,  and  was  greatly  esteemed  by  members  of  the 
dramatic  profession  whose  fur  he  sometimes  stroked  the  wrong  way.  Mr. 
Eobertson,  like  many  other  writers  on  the  staff  of  The  Chronicle,  must  be 
ranked  as  an  author.  His  collected  sketches,  appearing  under  the  title  of 
"The  Seedy  Gentleman,"  had  a  considerable  vogue.  He  was  a  great  favorite 
among  the  members  of  the  Bohemian  Club,  who  honored  him  by  making 
him  their  president. 

It  may  refpiire  more  evidence  than  two  or  three  instances  afford  to 
establish  the  claim  that  The  Chronicle  newsroom  was  a  training  school  for 
statesmen,  but  that  department  of  the  paper  has  to  its  credit  two  United 
States  Senators  and  one  Secretary  of  the  Interior.  Henry 
^    .  C.    Hansbrough    presided    at    the   telegraphic    desk    of    The 

School  for  Chronicle  for  two  or  three  years.  He  was  a  rapid  copy 
Statesmen  reader  and  could  construct  a  liead  which  attracted  attention. 
He  took  a  keen  interest  in  ])olitics  and  when  the  Dakotas 
were  coming  into  proininence  he  left  California  to  strike  out  a  new  career 
for  himself  in  that  country.  He  achieved  success  in  his  chosen  field  and 
w^as  elected  to  the  United   States   Senate,  serving  his   State  two  terms. 


Training  School  for  Statesmen  133 

Shortly  after  The  Chronicle  entered  its  new  home  on  the  corner  of  Bush 
and  Kearny  streets,  a  young  man  named  Frank  J.  Cannon  introduced  him- 
self to  the  editor,  stating  that  he  would  like  a  desk  position  which  would 
give  him  the  requisite  training  to  fit  him  to  run  a  paper  which  he  con- 
templated starting  in  Ogden.  There  was  a  vacancy  at  the  time  and  he  was 
installed  as  reader  of  Coast  exchanges  and  Coast  telegraph  editor,  lie  was 
industrious  and  quick  to  learn,  but  did  not  exercise  undue  haste  in  finish- 
ing his  education.  He  carried  out  his  purpose  of  starting  a  paper,  and 
later  was  elected  United  States  Senator  from  the  State  of  Utah.  He  is 
now  the  editorial  writer  for  the  Denver  Eocky  Mountain  News.  The  third 
on  the  list  w^as  Franklin  K.  Lane,  the  present  Secretary  of  the  Interior. 
Mr.  Lane  acted  as  The  Chronicle's  telegraph  correspondent  in  New  York. 
He  was  a  young  man  at  the  time,  but  possessed  a  fund  of  discretion,  and  the 
news  editor  paid  him  the  compliment  of  permitting  him  to  do  his  work 
without  telling  him  how  to  do  it.  "Xed"  Townsend,  as  he  was  familiarly 
called  at  the  time,  might  be  referred  to  as  a  fourth  on  the  list,  for  he  is 
now  a  member  of  Congress  from  New  Jersey.  Mr.  Townsend  began  his 
San  Francisco  career  on  The  Chronicle,  but  later  joined  the  Hearst  papers. 
His  "Chimniie  Fadden"  papers  won  for  him  national  newspaper  fame. 

An  attache  of  The  Chronicle  whose  work  attracted  attention  in  the 
eighties  was  Harry  Dam.  He  had  a  brilliant  style  and  an  aptitude  for 
dramatic  work.     After  some  years'  service  on  the  paper,  Mr.   Dam  was 

made  the  executive  secretary  of  Governor  Stoneman.  When 
^  his   labors   in   Sacramento  were  concluded  he  emigrated  to 

Chronicle  London,  where  he  succeeded  in  .having  two  or  three  of  his 

Contributors      plays  staged  and  achieved  a  distinct  success.    Charles  Warren 

Stoddard,  Joaquin  Miller,  Prentice  Mulford,  George  Alfred 
Townsend  and  Alexander  Del  Mar  were  regular  contributors  of  The 
Chronicle  during  the  eighties.  Stoddard  was  sent  to  the  Hawaiian  islands 
and  to  the  Near  East  and  his  letters  were  a  regular  Sunday  feature  of 
The  Chronicle  for  nearly  eleven  years.  Joaquin  Miller's  contributions 
were  as  frequent,  but  did  not  extend  over  so  long  a  period.  Prentice 
Mulford  wrote  articles  which  were  characterized  by  one  critic  as  common 
sense  philosophy.  He  was  far  more  familiar  with  life  in  the  mining  camps 
of  the  early  days  than  Bret  Harte,  and  came  nearer  giving  a  true  picture 
of  the  gold  hunters  than  that  author.  Alexander  Del  ]\Iar  was  a  mining 
engineer  whose  occupation  carried  him  all  over  the  globe,  and,  in  addition, 
was  an  author  of  distinction  and  became  a  recognized  authority  on  the 
subject  of  money.  Some  of  his  earliest  work  was  done  for  The  Chronicle, 
and  one  notal)le  article,  written  in  1881,  on  the  growth  of  corporations, 
foreshadowed  in  a  remarkable  numner  what  has  since  come  to  pass. 

It  was  sometime  in  the  eighties  that  W.  W.  Xaughton,  afterward  the 
sporting  editor  of  the  Examiner,  attached  himself  to  The  Chronicle  staff. 

He  recalled  with  considerable  amusement  a  short  time  before 
^^\%  his  death,  in  a  conversation  with  the  writer,  the  fact  that 

Writers  ^^''^n  he  first  began  to  make  a  specialty  of  reporting  sports 

for     The     Chronicle     the     question     was     seriously     raised 

whether  there  was  enough  news  of  that  particular  kind  to 
furnish  a  couple  of  columns  regularly  on  Sundays,  in  addition  to  that  pre- 
sented in  the  dailv.  Tliomas  E.  Flyim,  who  was  the  first  to  undertake  the 
task  of  providing  a  regular  column  of  that  sort,  can  testify  that  the  job 


134 


Journalism  in  California 


was  not  an  easy  one.  The  reference  to  Flynn's  connection  with  Tlie 
Chronicle  recalls  the  fact  that  he,  with  Arthur  McEwen  and  Joseph  Good- 
man, during  the  eighties  started  a  weekly  paper,  the  professed  object  of 
which  was  to  hold  up  a  journalistic  mirror  in  which  defective  San  Fran- 
ciscans might  see  themselves  as  others  saw  them.  The  venture  earned 
Avhat  the  French  call  "an  esteemed  success,"  hut  it  was  not  profitable,  and 
met  an  early  fate.  The  trio  were  exceptionally  fine  newspaper  men  and 
excellent  writers,  but  their  journal,  even  with  the  help  of  Sam  Davis,  who 
was  one  of  the  organizers  of  the  Sazerac  lying  club,  proved  an  unprofitable 
venture. 


CHAPTER    XVII 

MIDWINTER  EXPOSITION  OF  1894  AND  ITS  EXTRAORDINARY 

SUCCESS. 


A  New  Building  for  The  Chronicle  at  Market,  Creary  and  Kearny — An  Architectural 
Departure  Which  Caused  Much  Headshaking — M.  H.  de  Young's  Bold  Innova- 
tion— The  Chronicle  's  Big  Strides  in  the  Eleven  Years  Between  1879  and  1890 — 
A  Sixty-Page  Edition — Some  Remarkable  Comparisons — Hard  Times  After  a 
Period  of  Prosperity — A  Successful  Attempt  to  Turn  Aside  Adversity — M.  H. 
de  Young's  Proposition  to  Hold  a  Midwinter  Fair — A  Conspicuous  Instance  of 
the  Journalism  That  Does  Things — The  Story  of  a  Big  Enterprise — The  Manner 
of  Its  Suggestion  in  Chicago  at  the  Columbian  F^ir — An  Idea  Received  With 
Enthusiasm — The  Ball  Set  Rolling  in  Chicago— Local  Attempts  to  Head  off  the 
Project— Fears  That  It  Could  Not  Be  Successfully  Carried  Through— The  First 
Modest  Plans — Organization  Effected  and  M.  H.  de  Young  Selected  Director- 
General — Commissioners  Oppose  Location  of  Fair  in  Golden  Gate  Park — Formal 
Ground  Breaking  August  24,  1893 — Work  for  the  Unemployed — Four  Short 
Months  in  Which  to  Get  Ready — One  Hundred  and  Fifty  Buildings  Erected — 
Ready  to  Open  on  Time — A  Succession  of  Festivals  and  Other  Events — An 
Exposition  Which  Was  Made  to  Finance  Itself — What  It  Did  for  Golden 
Gate  Park  and  the  City  of  San  Francisco. 


N  THE  10th  of  June,  1890,  the  proprietor  of  The 
Chronicle  held  a  reception  in  the  new  hiiilding  on  the 
corner  of  Market,  Geary  and  Kearny  streets,  especially 
constructed  to  house  the  new  plant  of  the  paper.  The 
event  was  one  of  more  than  ordinary  importance  hecause 
it  marked  a  departure  in  architecture  which  was  char- 
acterized hy  many  as  venturesome,  hut  the  wisdom  of 
which  was  approved  by  the  event.  The  era  of  tall  build- 
ings had  begun  at  the  East  several  years  earlier  and  the  term  "skyscraper" 
had  already  become  familiar  to  San  Franciscans,  but  no  one  in  the  city 
imagined  that  anyone  would  be  bold  enough  to  .introduce  the  new  style 
of  construction  to  Californians.  When  M.  IT.  de  Young,  in  1888,  announced 
the  consummation  of  his  plans  for  building  a  ten-story  steel  structure  on 
the  site  which  was  made  the  center  and  heart  of  the  city  by  the  carrying 
out  of  his  determination  there  was  a  general  shaking  of  heads.  San  Fran- 
cisco had  undergone  an  experience  twenty  years  earlier  which  was  still 
fresh  in  the  minds  of  many,  and  predictions  were  made  that  in  the  event 
of  another  visitation  the  innovator  would  have  cause  to  regret  his  temerity. 
But  the  apprehensions  and  criticisms  of  those  who  had  not  investigated  the 
subject  had  no  effect  on  Mr.  de  Young,  who  had  gone  into  the  matter 
thoroughly  with  tlie  leading  architects  of  Chicago,  Burnham  &  Root,  the 

135 


136 


Journalism  in  California 


Saved  From 
Being  a 
Squatty 
City 


pioneers  in  the  construction  of  lofty  office  buildings  in  that  city,  and  Avas 
convinced,  that  a  building  erected,  on  the  most  approved  modern  lines  would 
stand  any  shock  to  which  it  might  be  subjected. 

Tlie  erection  by  M.  IT.  de  Young  of  The  Chronicle's  ten-story  building 
in  its  central  location  may,  therefore,  be  cliaracterized  as  an  exhibition  of 
'"the  journalism  which  does  things,"  as  it  encouraged  the  timid  to  abandon 
a  fear  the  retention  of  which  would  have  caused  San  Francisco 
to  stand  out  as  an  exception  to  American  cities.  In  an  era  of 
lofty  structures  it  would  have  remained  a  city  of  low  build- 
ings, wliich  would  have  seemed  squatty  by  comparison  with 
those  of  the  otlier  great  marts  of  the  country,  and  would  have 
perpetually  advertised  to  the  rest  of  the  world  an  apprehension  which  had 
no  real  existence,  for  it  was  not  true  at  the  time  that  San  Franciscans 
were  afraid  of  earthquakes  or  gave  their  possibilities  much  consideration. 
The  prognosticators  of  evil  were  sim])ly  indulging  in  speculations  suggested 
by  an  innovation,  a  fact  attested  by  the  comparative  promptness  with  which 
the  "daring"  example  of  Mr.  de  Young  of  The  Chronicle  was  followed. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  reasonably  certain  that  the  almost' dormant  feeling  would 
have  proved  a  sufticient  obstacle  to  a  departure  from  the  old  order  of  con- 
struction liad  not  someone  been  brave  enough  to  break  away  from  a  limita- 
tion which  was  fettering  the  progress  of  the  city. 

The  erection  of  The  Chronicle  building  and  its  occupation  on  June  10, 
1890,  was  noteworthy,  also,  for  another  reason.  It  marked  in  a  most  sig- 
nificant manner  the  strides  made  by  the  journal  in  the  short  space  of 
eleven  years.  In  1879,  when  the  paper  moved  into  the  home 
built  for  it  on  the  corner  of  Kearny  and  Bush  streets,  the 
newspaper  men  invited  to  inspect  the  equipment  of  the  new 
building  concurred  in  the  opinion  that  it  would  be  adequate 
to  the  needs  of  a  growing  journal  for  a  century  to  come.  The 
most  imaginative  on  that  September  day  in  187!)  were  unable  to  foresee  a 
tithe  of  the  groat  changes  eleven  years  would  bring  about;  they  could  talk 
fluently  about  the  expansion  of  the  city,  and  make  estimates  of  future 
population,  but  their  prophecies  were  attended  by  that  vagueness  of  detail 
which  tells  the  story  of  the  shadow  of  an  idea  too  faint  to  be  dignified  as  a 
concept.  In  1890,  when  the  throngs  invited  to  inspect  The  Chronicle's 
new  home  invaded  every  part  of  the  Imilding,  from  the  pressroom  in  the 
basement  to  the  outlook  from  the  tower,  there  was  a  more  respectful  atti- 
tude toward  possible  change.  There  was  a  feeling  that  the  new  location 
would  become  the  heart  of  the  city,  but,  in  the  minds  of  some  at  least, 
there  lurked  the  idea  that  more  room  might  be  needed  on  that  particular 
corner  at  some  future  day,  and  that  the  spick  and  span  new  e(iuipment  from 
top  to  bottom  might  have  the  same  fate  as  that  left  behind  at  Kearny  and 
Bush  streets,  when  The  Chronicle  moved  into  its  new  quarters. 

Although  the  reception  occurred  on  the  lOtli  of  June,  the  event  was 
not  celebrated  in  the  columns  of  the  y)aper  until  June  22d,  when  a  sixty- 
page  edition  was  issued.  This  was  by  all  odds  the  largest  paper  ever 
printed  on  the  Pacific  Coast.  Its  princi])nl  features  were  an  illustrated 
description  of  the  new  building,  and  a  detailed  history  of  the  progress  of 
the  paper  during  the  twenty-five  years  of  its  existence.  This  afl"orded  a 
fine  opportunity  to  make  some  instructive  comparisons,  and  they  were  made 
in  a  way  whicli  conveyed  to  the  reader  the  impression  that  the  juipp  in  size 


Big  Strides 
Made  in 
Eleven 
Years 


l-'IKST    STKEL    "SK  YSCJiA  IMJ  i;  '    IN    SAN    FKAXCISCO 

Erected   by  M.  H.   de  Young  in   1890,  on   the   corner  of  Market,   Geary  and   Kearny 

streets,  and   occupied  by  the  Chronicle   until  April,  1906. 


I 


Story  of  a  Big  Enterprise  137 

from  the  little  sheet  of  four  pages  of  four  columns  each,  to  a  sixty-page 
paper  of  420  columns  was  a  big  one,  and  well  worth  dwelling  upon.  There  was 
no  disputing  the  fact  that  the  9345  inches  of  reading  matter 
Largest  ^^  ^'^^  sixty-page  issue  made  a  formidable  showing  when  com- 

Paper  pared  with  the  216  inches  of  the  premier  issue,  of  which 

to  Date  nearly  three-fourths  was  advertising,  l)ut  the  writer,  had  he 

been  able  to  put  aside  the  veil  of  the  future,  would  have  been 
less  sure  than  he  seemed  to  be  that  high  water  mark  had  been  reached,  for 
since  that  time  special  editions  of  twice  sixty  pages  have  been  printed,  and 
the  regular  Sunday  issue  ecjuals  that  upon  which  so  much  stress  was  de- 
servedly laid  in  1890.  Another  feature  of  the  sixty-page  edition  was  a 
section  devoted  to  describing  the  growth  of  Pacific  Coast  towns,  and  the 
resources  which  promoted  their  advancement.  On  the  literary  side  there 
was  a  distinct  advance,  and  the  first  installment  of  chapters  of  a  serial  by 
Bret  Harte,  written  especially  for  The  Chronicle,  and  entitled  "Through  the 
Santa  Clara  Wheat,"  gave  promise  that  the  Sunday  magazine  was  to  con- 
tinue distinctive  as  well  as  interesting. 

The  prosperity  which  falsified  the  predictions  of  the  antagonists  of  the 
new  Constitution  of  1879  continued  during  the  eighties  and  showed  no 
signs  of  abating  until  1893,  the  year  of  the  Columbian  Exposition.    Nearly 
a  quarter  of  a  century  of  the  closer  relations  with  the  East, 
^.  produced  by  the  opening  of  the  transcontinental  railroads, 

Tollow  ^^^^  created  conditions  on  the  Coast  which  made  its  trade  and 

Prosperity  finances  respond  more  quickly  than  formerly  to  the  aberra- 
tions of  Eastern  markets.  It  was  no  longer  possible  as  it  had 
been  twenty  years  earlier  to  escape  a  panic  or  depression  having  its  origin 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Eoeky  mountains.  When  the  collapse  which  fol- 
lowed the  election  of  G rover  Cleveland  in  1892  occurred  San  Francisco 
began  to  show  signs  of  suffering  in  common  with  the  rest  of  the  Union. 
That  it  escaped  without  serious  injury  and  went  through  a  financial  storm 
which  resulted  in  broken  banks,  receiverships  and  bankruptcies  throughout 
the  rest  of  the  Union  is  wholly  attributable  to  the  fact  that  M.  H.  de 
Young,  realizing  the  impending  danger  and  being  a  firm  believer  in  the 
theory  that  it  is  wise  in  times  of  great  stress  to  divert  the  mind  from 
brooding,  suggested  and  promoted  a  project  which  accomplislied  that  object 
and  tided  the  community  safely  over  the  shoals  of  impending  disaster.  The 
project  and  the  mode  of  carrying  out  were  frankly  recognized  at  the  time  as 
the' most  conspicuous  instance  in  the  history  of  American  newspapering  of 
"the  journalism  that  does  things." 

From  the  moment  of  the  inception  of  the  idea  of  holding  an  interna- 
tional exposition  at  Chicago,  The  Chronicle  had  taken  a  lively  interest  in 
the  success  of  the  enterprise  and  contributed  largely  to  the  enthusiasm 
which  resulted  in  California  making  one  of  the  best  and  most 
Y  ■  ^'  ,^^  attractive  exhibits.    In  recognition  of  the  personal  part  taken 

Work^a\  ^^Y  ^^^-   ^^  Young  in  promoting  the  idea  of  making  Cali- 

Chicago  fornia's  showing  in  its  peculiar  industries  unrivaled,  he  was 

appointed  National  Commissioner  at  Large,  by  President 
Harrison,  to  represent  the  United  States  Government  at  the  Chicago 
Columbian  Exposition,  and  was  subsequently  elected  vice-president  of  the 
National  Commission.  Having  accepted  the  important  positions,  he  gave 
the  duties  devolving  upon  him  earnest  attention,  and  before  and  after  the 


138  Journalism  in  California 

opening  of  tlie  exposition  he  was  in  constant  attendance  in  Chicago.  His 
work  as  National  Commissioner  brought  him  into  close  relation  with  many 
foreign  exhibitors,  and  that  fact  played  its  part  in  the  formation  of  the 
idea  which  bore  such  excellent  fruit.  He  found  that  many  of  them  were 
greatly  interested  in  California  and  their  inciuiries  suggested  that  their 
curiosity  inight  be  made  to  take  a  form  that  would  prove  beneficial  to  the 
State.  Having  satisfied  himself  on  this  latter  point,  he  broached  what  he 
had  in  mind  to  several  prominent  Californians  who  were  in  Chicago  at 
the  time,  and  was  gratified  to  find  that  the  suggestion  made  by  him,  that 
it  would  be  possible  to  hold  a  fair  in  San  Francisco  at  the  conclusion  of 
the  Columbian  Exj)osition,  was  received  with  enthusiasm. 

The  idea,  as  first  outlined  by  Mr.  de  Young  on  May  31st,  was  much 
more  modest  than  the  subsequent  realization.     He  thought  that  a  suitable 
location  could  be  secured  in  (lolden  C}ate  Park  on  which  to  erect  a  building 
the  size  of  the  ]\Iechanics'  Pavilion,  in  which  exhibits  coukl 
j^  be  housed,  and  that  their  exhibition  could  be  made  attractive 

That  Grew  %  inducing  some  of  the  best  concessions  to  visit  San  Fran- 
Rapidly  cisco.     Twenty  acres  was  tentatively  mentioned  by  him  as 

about  the  quantity  of  si)ace  that  would  be  required.  The 
exchange  of  views  by  the  Californians  in  Chicago  was  immediately  followed 
by  the  transmission  of  dispatches  to  the  Governor  of  California  and  the 
Mayor  of  the  city,  and  prompt  replies  were  received  from  them  indicating 
their  willingness  to  assist  in  forwarding  the  project.  The  latter  called  a 
meeting  of  prominent  San  Franciscans.  They  all  agreed  that  such  a.  fair 
as  Mr.  de  Young  proposed  would  be  beneficial  in  many  ways,  but  the 
most  of  them  thought  that  the  depression  in  business  which  had  already 
made  itself  felt  in  San  Francisco  would  prove  an  insuperable  obstacle  to 
raising  the  necessary  funds  to  carry  out  the  enterprise. 

A  little  inquiry  by  tlie  minority  of  the  conference  developed  the  fact 
that  Mr.  de  Young's  suggestion,  which  was  given  publicity  by  the  press, 
aj)pealed  to  the  people.     When  he  was  informed  concerning  the  apprehen- 
sion that  the  enterprise  could  not  be  financed  in  a  time  of 
th^*^"^  depression,  Mr.  de  Young,  on  June  5th,  telegraphed :    "Per- 

Ball  ^""I't  me  to  put  down  my  name  as  a  subscriber  to  the  amount 

Rolling  of  $5000."    On  June  lith,  Mr.  de  Young,  at  a  meeting  called 

by  the  California  Colum])ian  Club  in  Chicago,  at  which  there 
were  over  a  hundred  persons  present,  went  more  fully  into  details.  There 
were  several  commissioners  from  foreign  countries  present,  who  expressed 
favorable  views  and  gave  assurances  that  their  respective  nations  would  be 
represented  creditably,  if  not  in  an  official  way,  at  least  satisfactorily  so 
far  as  exhibits  were  concerned.  Speeches  were  made  by  prominent  Cali- 
fornians in  which  the  belief  was  expressed  that  the  fair  could  be  made  a 
great  success  and  that  it  would  result  in  a  magnificent  advertisement  of 
the  climate  and  resources  of  the  Golden  State.  A  subscription  list  was 
passed  around  at  this  meeting  and  $11,500  was  subscribed.  A  full  account 
of  the  meeting  in  the  Califoi-nia  Building  was  telegraphed  to  San  Fran- 
cisco, which  had  the  effect  of  increasing  the  popular  desire  for  the  suggested 
fair,  but  did  not  entirely  allay  the  fears  of  those  Avho  had  expressed  doubts 
concerning  the  a])ility  to  raise  the  fund  that  would  be  required  to  finance 
the  undertaking,  and  at  a  meeting  held  on  June  13th  in  the  Mayor's  office 
a  resolution  was  offered  which  would  have  sidetracked  the  proposition  had 


14 


Story  of  a  Big  Enterprise  13!) 

it  carried.  But  the  advocates  of  the  fair  protested  against  tiiis  suinniary 
disposition,  and  asked  tlie  appointment  of  a  committee  of  fifty  to  investigate 
the  matter  furtlier. 

The  fifty  citizens  were  named  by  the  Mayor  and  effected  an  organiza- 
tion. A  committee  of  eleven  of  their  number  was  created  to  formuhite  a 
plan  of  progress,  which  was  submitted  at  a  meeting  held  in  the  City  Hall 

on  June  2yth.  At  this  gathering  the  aijprehensive  were  out 
Desienation  "^  ^"^^  force  and  several  of  them  expressed  the  oi)iniou  that 
Midwinter  if  would  be  impossible  to  carry  out  Mr.  de  Young's  idea  of 
Fair  getting  up  an  exhibition  whose  name  would  advertise  to  the 

world  (California's  climatic  advantages  in  the  brief  period 
allotted.  When  the  idea  was  first  broached  by  Mr.  de  Young  in  Chicago 
lie  spoke  of  the  potency  of  the  phrase  "Midwinter  Exposition,"  and  that 
title  was  accepted,  as  was  also  the  suggestion  that  it  should  be  opened  on 
the  1st  of  the  succeeding  January.  The  majority  of  the  conMuittee  did 
not  share  the  timidity  of  those  who  urged  that  the  time  was  too  short  to 
get  ready  and  that  the  money  to  do  so  could  not  be  raised  in  a  hurry. 
Speeches  were  made  in  favor  of  going  ahead,  and  there  were  numerous 
allusions  to  the  suggestion  made  in  a  telegram  from  ]\Ir.  de  Young  that 
the  effect  of  holding  a  fair  in  a  time  of  depression  would  serve  to  convince 
the  rest  of  the  country  that  the  affairs  of  San  Francisco  and  California 
were  on  a  solid  foundation.  The  discussion  ended  in  the  adoption  of  a 
plan  of  pernument  organization,  wliicli  liad  for  its  main  feature  the  provi- 
sion that  four  buildings  should  be  erected,  the  cost  of  which  in  the 
aggregate  was  not  to  exceed  $500,000. 

On  the  ensuing  day,  M.  IT.  de  Young  was  elected  President  and 
Director-General  by  the  citizens'  committee,  and  an  advisory  board,  con- 
sisting  of   P.    N.   Lilienthal,   Irwin    C.    Stump,   E.    B.    Mitchell    and    A. 

Andrews  of  San  Francisco,  Eugene  Gregory  of  Sacramento, 
Young  Elected  •^''^^'^^^  ^^-  ^^'^  °^  Colfax,  Fulton  G.  Berry  of  Fresno  and 
Director-  *^  Joseph  S.  Slauson  of  Los  Angeles,  was  also  formed.  As  soon 
General  as  Mr.  de  Young  was  apprised  of  his  election  he  returned  to 

San  Francisco  from  Chicago,  and  immediately  on  his  arrival 
set  to  work  formulating  the  details.  His  experience  gained  as  a  National 
Commissioner  to  the  Ccjlumbian  Exposition  was  drawn  upon  and  he  soon 
had  affairs  moving  in  such  a  fashion  that  the  skeptical  abandoned  their 
doubts.  The  work  of  securing  the  necessary  funds  was  energetically  ])uslied, 
and  it  speedily  develoj)ed  the  soundness  of  the  view  that  the  right  thing 
to  do  when  a  financial  stress  is  threatened  is  to  create  a  condition  which 
will  divert  thought  from  impending  trouble.  It  is  noteworthy  that  when 
the  subscription  list  was  passed  around  all  sorts  of  persons  were  ready  to 
contribute,  the  workingman  handing  in  bis  offering  as  freely  as  the  mer- 
chant who  had  faith  that  the  enterprise  would  Ijcnefit  business,  or  the 
railroad,  whose  managers  could  foresee  increased  transportation  receipts. 
The  total  amount  sui)scribed,  including  the  value  of  ccmtributions  other 
than  money,  was  $344,319.59.  The  sum  may  seem  small  compared  with 
the  amounts  expended  on  other  expositions  before  and  since,  but  the  results 
achieved  will  bear  comparison  with  the  best. 

When  the  idea  of  the  Midwinter  Exposition  was  first  mooted  by  Mr.  de 
Young,  he  spoke  of  twenty  acres  as  a  tract  sufficiently  large  for  the  pur- 
pose in  view,  and  be  also  mentioned  Golden  Gate  Park  as  the  proper  place 


140  Journalism  in  California 

in  wliic'li  to  locate  the  exhibition.     It  did  not  occur  to  him,  or  to  anyone 
else  for  that  matter,  that  there  would  be  any  objection  to  temporarily 
devoting  a  portion  of  the  people's  pleasure  ground  to  a  use  which  would 
.  .  benefit  the  community.     By  far  the  greater  part  of  the  more 

Location"  *°    ^^^^^  ^  thousand  acres  composing  the  Park  M'as  a  waste  of 
in  sand  hills  and  scrub  brush,  and  he  proposed  redeeming  as 

Park  much  of  this  unfrequented  wilderness  as  would  be  required. 

But  he  had  revised  his  opinion  concerning  the  area  which  he 
at  first  had  thought  would  suffice  for  all  requirements.  The  multiplying 
evidences  of  popularity,  and  requests  for  space  from  neighboring  states  and 
counties,  and  from  concessionaires,  made  it  clear  to  him  that  ten  times  as 
much  land  as  was  at  first  suggested  would  be  needed,  and  he  astonished  the 
Park  Commissioners  by  preferring  a  re(iuest  to  set  aside  two  hundred  acres. 
Intimations  had  been  thrown  out  before  formal  application  was  made  that 
it  would  be  denied  on  the  ground  that  the  Park  could  not  properly  be  put 
to  the  use  proposed,  but  Mr.  de  Young,  by  an  energetic  presentation  of 
what  he  expected  to  accomplish,  persuaded  the  Commissioners  that  good 
public  policy  demanded  that  "Concert  Valley,"  then  a  wild  waste,  should  be 
temporarily  surrendered,  the  promise,  afterward  made  good,  being  given 
that  it  would  be  restored  in  such  shape  that  the  original  plans  for  its 
permanent  improvement  would  be  greatly  facilitated. 

The  Park  Commissioners'  consent  to  the  use  of  Concert  Valley  being 
obtained,  Director-Ceneral  de  Young  lost  no  time  in  preparing  the  site  for 
the  occupation  of  the  buildings  decided  upon.     On  the  24th  of  August,  in 
the   presence   of   about   sixty   thousand    people,   ground   was 
Formallv  formally  broken.     The  ceremony  was  preceded  by  a  military 

Broken  ^^id  civic  procession,  one  o,f  the  divisions  of  which  was  a  big 

band  of  workingmen,  a  part  of  the  army  of  unemployed  who 
were  to  be  benefited  by  the  enterprise  about  to  be  inaugurated. 
Mr.  de  Young  made  a  speech  before  turning  the  first  shovelful  of  earth, 
which  was  largely  devoted  to  describing  the  benefits  which  he  predicted 
would  follow  the  successful  carrying  out  of  the  enterprise,  in  the  course  of 
which  he  dwelt  ujwn  the  relief  that  would  be  afforded  to  a  large  number  of 
unemployed  artisans  and  toilers  of  all  kinds,  not  forgetting  to  remind  his 
hearers  that  the  l)est  possible  remedy  for  a  business  depression  Avas  to  do 
something  calculated  to  turn  the  mind  from  its  contemplation.  This  he 
declared  would  surely  happen  when  the  community  woke  to  the  full  realiza- 
tion of  what  it  was  purposed  to  accomplish.  Speeches,  of  similar  import 
were  made  by  W.  H.  L.  Barnes  and  Irving  M.  Scott,  and  the  first  earth  was 
turned  with  the  silver  shovel  especially  made  for  the  occasion. 

From  that  moment.  Concert  Valley  was  a  scene  of  activity.  With  an 
eye  to  dramatic  effect,  the  Director-General  had  in  readiness  a  band  of 
workers  with  teams,  and  the  crowd  of  sixty  thousand  witnessed  the  begin- 
ning of  the  task  of  converting  an  unsightly  waste  of  two  hun- 
Months^n^*  dred  acres  into  a  suitable  site  for  the  big  buildings,  the  plans 
Which  to  Get  ^'^^  which  would  be  in  readiness  before  the  contractor,  work 
Ready  he  ever  so  swiftly,  could  prepare  the  ground.     There  was  no 

waiting  for  anything  after  the  ground  breaking  ceremony,  for 
it  had  been  decided  that  the  fair  should  be  opened  on  the  1st  of  January, 
1H94.  That  left  but  four  short  months  in  which  to  complete  some  loO 
buildings,  great  and  small,  put  the  grounds  in  order  and  to  ini:,tall  the  ex- 


Story  of  a  Big  Enterprise  141 

liibits.  It  will  be  recalled  that  when  the  project  was  first  suggested  a  single 
building  of  the  size  of  the  Mechanics'  Pavilion,  and  provision  for  the  attrac- 
tions of  concessionaires,  were  spoken  of,  but  long  before  the  ceremony  of 
ground  breaking  the  Director-CJeneral  had  foreseen  that  every  foot  of  the 
two  hundred  acres  asked  for  would  be  needed  to  meet  the  demands  of 
intending  participants. 

The  main  buildings  decided  upon,  which  were  to  surround  the  Grand 
Court  of  Honor,  were  under  construction  before  the  contractor  who  was 
putting  the  grounds  into  shape  had  completely  finished  his  task.    They  were 

five  in  number,  and  the  largest,  dedicated  to  Manufactures 
Buildings  '"^*^   Liberal   Arts,   was   4G2    feet   long  and   225   feet   wide, 

and  the  ^^''^'^   ^'^   annex   370   feet   by   GO  feet.     The  style  of  archi- 

Grand  Court     tecture  was  an  adaptation  from  the  California  mission.     The 

next  largest  was  the  Horticultural  and  Agricultural  Building, 
400  ])y  200  feet,  surmounted  by  a  dome  100  feet  in  diameter  and  ninety 
feet  high.  The  architect  in  the  main  followed  Spanish  and  Romanes(|ue  in 
his  treatment,  which  had  also  a  suggestion  of  the  old  missions.  The 
Mechanical  Arts  had  an  East  Indian  motive.  It  was  330  feet  long  by  160 
deep.  The  Fine  Arts  was  suggestive  of  Egypt,  and  with  its  decorations  of 
sphinxs  and  hieroglyphs  it  presented  a  unique  and  not  unpleasing  appear- 
ance. Its  dimensions  wore  120x00  feet,  but,  before  the  fair  opened,  an 
annex  had  to  be  provided  to  accommodate  the  exhibits.  The  Administra- 
tion building,  with  its  gilded  dome  1:55  feet  high,  was  one  of  the  most 
striking  structures  on  the  Grand  Court.  The  architect  went  to  Byzantium 
for  his  model,  but  in  the  ornamentation  used  Gothic  and  Moresque  motives 
impartially,  producing  a  satisfactory  effect.  It  is  worth  noting  that  in 
scheming  the  general  effect  the  color  idea  was  adopted.  The  historian  of 
the  Midwinter  Fair,  commenting  on  this  feature,  said  :  "The  buildings 
were  so  beautifully  colored  that  the  Grand  Court,  around  which  they  stood, 
was  said  by  visiting  journalists  to  entitle  the  exposition  to  the  name  of 
'The  Opal  City.' " 

In  addition  to  the  five  main  buildings  on  the  Grand  Court  the  Com- 
mission constructed  a  Festival  Hall,  LSOxlGO  feet,  in  which  concerts  were 
given  and  which  provided  a  place  for  the  meeting  of  conventions,  several 

of  which  were  held  while  the  fair  was  in  progress.  The 
^^f  ^}^}}^^^^  affffreffate  cost  of  these  six  principal  structures  was  $353,731. 
Buildings  No  account  appears  to  have  been  kept  of  the  amount  expended 

Erected  in  the  construction  of  most  of  the  other  buildings  erected  by 

states,  counties,  foreign  countries  and  concessionaires,  some 
of  which  nearly  rivaled  in  size  the  principal  structures.  Several  of  the 
counties  maintained  separate  exhibits,  notably  Alameda,  while,  in  other 
cases,  sections  united  for  a  common  display.  The  Northern  and  Central 
counties  resorted  to  this  latter  course,  and  Southern  California  had  a  hand- 
some building,  in  which  its  special  products  were  displayed.  The  State 
of  Nevada  made  an  effective  display,  and  Oregon  showed  what  could  be 
done  with  the  lumber  from  its  great  forests.  The  Chinese  had  one  of  the 
most  striking  exhibits,  housed  in  a  structure  of  a  style  not  seen  outside  of 
China  before,  and  the  Japanese  gave  visitors  an  idea  of  their  landscape 
gardening  l)y  fashioning  the  "Tea  Garden,"  which  still  exists  in  the  Park 
as  a  memorial  of  the  Midwinter  Fair,  it  being  presented  to  the  Commis- 
sioners after  the  closing  of  the  exposition. 


142  Journalism  in  California 

The  Plaisance  of  the  Midwinter  Fair  was  one  of  its  greatest  attrac- 
tions.    The  popularity  of  the  name  given  to  the  section  devoted  to  conces- 
sions in  Chicago  caught  the  fancy  of  San  Franciscans  and  hy  common  con- 
sent the  thoroughfare  along  and  near  which  the  concessions 
Midway  were  arranged  was  called  "The  Midway."     Among  the  most 

the  Many  alluring  of  these  side  shows  were:     The  Forty-Nine  Camp, 

Festivals  a    Dahomey    Village,    the    Streets    of    Cairo,   the   Crater   of 

Kilauea  of  Hawaii,  Arizona  Indian  Village,  A^ienna  Prater, 
Heidelberg  Castle  and  German  Village,  Japanese  Theater,  Firth  Wheel, 
Oriental  Theater,  Scenic  Eailway,  Esquimau  Village,  North  American 
Indians  and  Boone's  Arena  and  Menagerie.  The  buildings  and  the 
inclosures  for  all  these  concessions,  the  state  and  county  buildings,  the  prin- 
cipal structures  on  the  Grand  Court,  grandstands  and  innumerable  booths 
were  all  in  readiness  on  the  day  announced  for  the  opening,  but  untoward 
weather  delayed  the  arrival  of  some  of  the  principal  exhibits  and  prevented 
their  installation  before  the  1st  of  January,  but  the  fair  was  informally 
opened  on  that  date,  the  Director-General  having  resolved  to  redeem  the 
promise  made  when  the  project  was  first  launched. 

The  ceremonial  opening,  which  was  marked  by  a  grand  parade,  did  not 
occur  until  January  29th.  The  day  was  beautiful  and  a  vast  throng  was 
in  attendance,  72,248  passing  through  the  turnstiles.  All  the  foreign 
exliibits  were  in  place  and  the  concession  attractions  were 
^  ®  .  .  running  in  full  blast.  The  states  and  counties  were  all  in 
Opening  readiness,  and  their  displays  were  a  source  of  gratification 

to  the  Pacific  Coasters  who  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  them. 
The  exhibits  in  the  foreign  sections  were  very  attractively  dis- 
played in  booths,  many  of  which  were  constructed  at  great  expense  and 
handsomely  decorated.  From  that  day  until  the  closing  of  the  gates  on 
the  Fourth  of  July,  there  was  a  continuous  succession  of  fetes  and  events. 
There  were  parades  by  day  and  fireworks  and  electric  displays  by  night. 
The  first  real  acquaintance  with  the  possibilities  of  electricity  in  the  way 
of  illumination  was  made  by  San  Franciscans  when  the  lofty  tower  in  the 
center  of  the  Grand  Court  was  picked  out  with  colored  incandescent  lights, 
and  the  fountain  at  the  north  end  was  playing,  showing,  with  the  aid  of 
colored  prisms  operated  from  beneath,  sheaves  of  wheat,  golden  and  silver 
cascades  of  water  and  other  l)eautiful  objects.  There  Avas  no  lack  of  music, 
the  best  military  bands  of  the  East  and  one  specially  organized  for  the  fair 
playing  by  day,  and  a  splendid  string  orchestra  discoursing  symphonic  and 
other  liigh  class  music  in  Festival  Hall  at  night.  There  were  almond  blos- 
som days  and  rose  and  other  floral  festivals  and  tournaments  at  arms. 
There  was  something  doing  all  the  time,  either  gay  or  serious,  among 
events  in  the  latter  category  being  congresses  discussing  Economics  and 
Politics,  Religion,  Literature,  Education,  Chemistry  and  Woman's  Affairs. 
Nearly  200,000  persons  passed  through  the  turnstiles  during  the  first 
two  weeks  after  the  formal  opening.  The  total  number  of  admissions 
between  January  27th  and  July  4tli  Avas  1,315,022.  In  addition,  there 
was  a  pre-oxposition  record  of  78,192  and  of  40,8(57  between  July  5th  and 
31st,  making  a  grand  total  of  1 ,434,081.  Among  the  days  of  largest  attend- 
ance were  the  following:  Washington's  Birthday,  35,000;  Examiner's 
Children's  day,  55,000;  St.  Patrick's  day,  75,000;  Chronicle  Children's  day, 
90,097,  and  the  closing  day,  July  4th,  79,082.    It  was  confidently  expected 


Story  of  a  Big  Enterprise  143 

that  the  attendance  on  the  closing  day  would  top  the  100,000  mark,  l)ut  the 
distraction  produced  by  a  railroad  strike  in  progress,  which  had  resulted  in 

interrupting  communication  with  the  city,  destroyed  this  hope. 
Attendance  ^^'^^en  it  is  kept  in  mind  that  the  population  of  the  region 
and  the  which  finds  San  Francisco  easily  accessible  was  not  more  tlian 

Big  Days  one-third  as  great   in   1893   as  it   is   at  present,   the   above 

showing  must  be  regarded  as  marvelous  and  thoroughly 
indicative  of  the  pleasure  loving  propensities  of  the  citizens  of  the  Pacific 
Coast  metropolis.  In  order  properly  to  understand  what  was  accomplished, 
it  is  necessary  to  recall  the  fact  that  the  Midwinter  Exposition  did  not 
receive  one  cent  from  the  municipality,  state  or  nation.  It  was  a  purely 
voluntary  affair,  and  an  exhibition  of  public-spiritedness  and  enterprise 
the  like  of  which  had  never  been  witnessed  in  this  or  auy  other  country. 
When  compared  with  some  of  the  expositions  which  were  the  recipients 
of  public  aid  on  a  liberal  scale,  San  Francisco's  Exposition  does  not  suffer 
by  the   comparison.      The   Centennial   at   Philadelphia   only   boasted   five 

main  buildings  and  less  than  200  structures  of  all  sorts.  The 
Wa^^Mad^^t?  ^^^"^  Orleans  Fair  of  1884-85  received  a  national  loan  of  a 
Finance  million,  which  was  never  repaid,  and  in  addition  sold  a  half 

Itself  million  of  stock,  and  obtained  $100,000  each  from  the  city  of 

New  Orleans  and  the  State  of  Louisiana.  The  Jamestown 
Exposition  was  also  liberally  endowed  by  the  Xa^ion,  but  failed  to  justify 
itself.  San  Francisco's  undertaking  stands  almost  alone  as  an  instance 
of  an  enterprise  which  practically  financed  itself  after  the  original  volun- 
tary subscription  was  provided,  and  on  that  account  the  figures  of  its 
final  accounting  are  interesting.  The  receipts  aggregated  $1,200,112,  being 
made  up  of  the  following  items :  Subscriptions,  $370,775 ;  sales  of  space, 
$77,855;  gate  receipts,  $531,722;  grandstand,  $9997;  concessions,  $125,086; 
privileges,  $89,471,  and  salvage,  $10,445.  The  principal  items  of  expendi- 
ture were:  Salaries,  $240,539;  amusements,  $113,740,  and  construction 
and  purchases  for  museum,  $731,377.  When  the  affairs  of  the  enterprise 
were  all  wound  up,  improvements  and  donations  aggregating  in  value 
$194,051.49  were  turned  over  to  the  Park  Commissioners.  On  the  oc- 
casion of  the  formal  presentation  of  the  Museum  to  the  Park  the  chairman 
acknowledged  the  gift  in  these  words:  "For  years  to  come  the  building 
will  remind  our  people  that  in  the  years  1893-94,  in  the  midst  of  almost 
unprecedented  financial  depression,  an  industrial  exposition  was  here  pro- 
jected and  carried  to  a  successful  termination.  *  *  *  It  is  no  secret  that 
the  Park  Commissioners  did  not  receive  the  exposition  project  in  its  incep- 
tion with  any  degree  of  hospitality,  and  that,  when  they  ccmsented  to  allot 
space  in  the  Park  they  did  it  with  misgivings  and  really  in  obedience  to  an 
overwhelming  public  opinion.  *  *  *  The  differences  between  the  exposi- 
tion directory  and  the  Commissioners  are  of  the  past.  The  exposition  has 
been  a  success."  And  that  was  the  verdict  of  the  wliole  community,  and, 
because  it  proved  so,  the  writer  makes  bold  to  claim  for  it  the  distinction 
of  being  the  most  conspicuous  example  of  the  journalism  that  does  things 
which  the  country  has  witnessed.  It  was  the  conception  of  a  newspaper 
man  who  depended  chiefly  upon  the  energetic  efforts  of  his  paper  to  promote 
the  enterprise.  Through  the  instrumentality  of  The  Chronicle  enthusiasm 
was  aroused  and  interest  kept  alive,  and  what  at  first  was  characterized  by 
the  timid  as  a  doubtful  undertaking  was  converted  into  a  glorious  success. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

JOURNALISTIC    CHANGES   AND    TOLICIES    PRIOR 
TO    NINETEEN    HUNDRED. 

No  Monopoly  in  the  Field  of  Journalism — Great  Journals  the  Product  of  Toil  and 
Patient  Upbuilding^ — The  Disappearance  of  the  Alta  California — A  Newspaper 
Killed  by  Cheapness — Objection  to  the  Introduction  of  Pennies — Diminishing 
Interest  in  Stock  Speculation  Causes  Death  of  Two  Papers — The  Bulletin  and 
Call  Change  Hands — John  D.  Spreckels  Acquires  the  Call — Strenuous  Adherence 
to  the  Policy  of  Pay-as-You-Go — The  Ne\v  City  Hall  of  1870  a  Ruin  Before 
It  Was  Finished — Property  Sold  by  the  City  Repurchased  to  Secure  a  Building 
Site — The  Dollar  Limit  of  Taxation  and  the  Water  Supply — The  Regulation  of 
Water  Rates — Dollar  Tax  Limit  Used  as  a  Political  Bait  by  Boss  Buckley — 
Newspaper  Hostility  to  Smooth  Pavements — Editors  Who  Were  Reserved  in  the 
Matter  of  Expressing  Opinion — Samuel  S.  Moffat 's  Free  Trade  Articles  in  the 
Examiner — The  Chronicle 's  Advocacy  of  the  Development  of  the  Resources  of 
the  State — Helping  Neighboring  States  and  Territories — Good  Advice  Given  to 
Southern  Californians— The  Rush  to  the  Klondike — Big  Force  Sent  to  Report 
the  Discoveries — A  Twelve-Page  Edition  of  the  Northern  El  Dorado — Optimistic 
Predictions  Concerning  Alaska — A  Book  Published  in  a  Single  Issue — Chronicle 
Monographs  Reproduced  as  Public  Documents  by  Congress. 

HE  most  important  factor  in  the  development  and  exten- 
sion of  journalism  in  the  United  States  was  the  growth 
of  the  prosperity  of  the  country.  The  increasing 
wealth  of  its  inhabitants  made  possible  the  ex])loitation 
of  the  numerous  inventions,  ])oth  European  and  Ameri- 
can, which  had  for  tiieir  object  the  improvement  of  the 
processes  of  newspaper  production,  all  of  which  tended 
toward  the  multiplication  of  journals  and  periodicals  of 
all  kinds  and  the  enlargement  of  the  circulations  of  those  already  estab- 
lished. This  latter  phenomenon  concurred  with  the  extinction  of  once 
popular  favorites.  The  disappearance  of  the  latter,  however,  is  in  no  wise 
attributable  to  the  crowding-out  process,  for  simultaneously  with  the 
valedictories  of  the  unfortunate  publishers  there  were  constantly  appearing 
salutatory  announcements  from  fresh  aspirants  for  approval  who  were 
undeterred  by  the  bad  luck  or  the  ill  results  of  the  mismanagement  of  tlie 
unsuccessful.  There  is  nothing  in  the  history  of  ncwspapering  in  San 
Francisco  more  striking  than  this  latter  fact,  and  it  disposes  of  the  fallacy 
entertained  in  some  quarters  that  the  great  journals  of  this  and  other 
American  cities  enjoy  a  monopoly  in  newsgathering  or  any  other  journal- 
istic field.  The  fact  that  it  would  be  hopeless  for  the  possessor  of  great 
wealth  to  enter  into  successful  competition  with  established  journals  by  the 
lavish  expenditure  of  money  does  not  prove  that  those  already  occupying 

144  ^    ' 


/ 


The  Opposition  to  Pennies  145 


the  field  enjoy  a  monopoly;  it  merely  emphasizes  what  many  have  learned 
to  their  cost,  namely,  that  a  great  newspaper  can  he  created  only  hy  the 
slow  process  of  upbuilding. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  newspaper  assumedly  well  established,  and  in 
the  enjoyment  of  all  the  facilities  which  experience  and  public  favor  can 
confer,  may^  despite  apparently  inexhaustible  resources,  meet  the  fate  of  the 
struggling  aspirant  who  attributes  his  failure  to  succeed  to 
Calffornia  exclusive  privileges  possessed  by  his  competitors.  That  was 
Ceases  ^l^e  case  of  the  Alta  California,  which  passed  out  of  existence 

Publication  in  1801.  The  Alta  was  a  pioneer  paper,  the  lineal  suc- 
cessor of  the  Star  and  Californian  of  1<S49.  It  began  ])ub- 
lication  as  a  tri-weekly  in  1849  and  about  a  month  after  its  issuance  in  that 
form  it  blossomed  out  into  San  Francisco's  first  daily.  It  soon  had  rivals 
which  surpassed  it  in  circulation  and  business,  but,  as  a  result  of  the  Vigi- 
lante uprising,  it  forged  to  the  front,  the  business  men  of  the  city  by 
concerted  action  transferring  their  patronage  from  the  Herald  to  the  Alta. 
In  May,  1858,  its  owners,  Pickering  and  Fitch,  sold  it  to  Frederick  Mc- 
Crellish  &  Co.  Under  their  management,  it  was  fairly  prosperous,  suffi- 
ciently so  to  absorb  the  Times  and  to  maintain  its  leading  position,  al- 
though'it  made  no  particular  effort  to  do  so,  pursuing  the  even  tenor  of  its 
way,  sticking  to  eld  methods  and  disregarding  would-be  rivals.  After  the 
death  of  McCrellish  and  Woodward,  it  fell  into  the  hands  of  James  G. 
Fair,  who  acquired  it  for  the  purpose  of  promoting  his  large  personal  in- 
terests and  supporting  his  political  aspirations.  Queerly  enough,  although 
the  Alta  was  able  to  draw  on  a  practically  exhaustless  treasury,  it  drooped 
and  finally  died. 

The  extinguishment  of  the  Alta  was  the  most  notable  item  in  the 
journalistic  mortuary  record  of  the  nineties,  unless  that  of  the  Evening  Re- 
port, because  of  the  circumstances  of  its  death,  is  entitled  to  that  distinc- 
tion. The  Eeport  was  started  as  early  as  1863,  but  for  a  con- 
of  the  '^^^'^  siderable  period  hardly  took  rank  as  a  newspaper,  its  atten- 
Daiiy  tion  being  wholly  confined  to  mining  news  and  quotations  of 

Report  the  stock  market.     When  the  Big  Bonanza  excitement  took 

possession  of  the  city  it  began  to  print  general  news,  and, 
under  the  management  of  its  proprietor,  William  M.  Bunker,  who  bought 
an  interest  in  1875,  it  began  seriously  to  dispute  the  field  with  the  Post 
and  Bulletin.  After  the  subsidence  of  interest  in  mining  stocks,  the  Re- 
port began  to  lose  attractiveness,  but  was  still  a  good  enough  paper  to 
tempt  the  Scripps  League  to  take  it  over,  paying  Bunker  a  handsome  price 
for  the  property.  The  new  management  made  the  blunder  of  imagining 
that  San  Francisco  was  ripe  for  the  introduction  of  a  penny  paper.  Up  to 
that  time  no  paper  in  San  Francisco  was  sold  for  less  than  five  cents.  In- 
deed, the  public  had  hardly  emerged  from  the  "bit"  habit.  The  nickel 
was  still  regarded  with  distrust,  an  uneconomic  people  arguing  that  the 
use  of  small  coins  would  prove  destructive  to  a  high  standard  of  living. 
This  attitude  of  the  community,  combined  with  the  open  hostility  of  the 
newsboys,  proved  fatal  to  the  Scripps'  venture  and  very  soon  fhe  Reporf 
was  numbered  among  the  "has  beens"  of  San  Francisco  journalism.  An- 
other evening  paper,  similar  in  its  origins,  known  as  the  Stock  Exchange, 
also  departed  its  life  in  the  early  nineties.  It  was  well  edited,  and  during 
the  period  when  the  sale  of  mining  stocks  and  the  collection  of  assessments 


146  Journalism  in  California 

on  non-paying  dividend  shares  flourished  it  enjoyed  a  fair  patronage.  D. 
F.  Verdenal,  who  subsequently  became  the  New  York  correspondent  of 
The  Chronicle,  was  the  editor  in  the  heyday  of  its  prosperity. 

The  Call  passed  from  the  ownership  of  Pickering  and  Fitch,  who  had 
built  it  up,  and  into  the  possession  of  John  D.  Spreckels  in  1897.  Up  to 
the  time  of  the  transfer  this  journal  had  maintained  the  extreme  conserva- 
tism which  had  marked  its  course  from  the  date  of  its  founda- 
z~^  tion.     Eivalry  proved  powerless  to  influence  the  style  of  the 

Changes  presentation  of  news  adopted  a  score  of  years  earlier.     Flam- 

Hands  l)oyancy   in   headings  or  typography  were   abhorred   by  the 

editors  of  l)oth  the  Call  and  Bulletin  and  they  were  equally 
averse  to  departures  in  reporting  or  innovations  of  any  sort.  They  did 
not  lack  good  writers  and  competent  reporters,  but  they  worked  under  a 
restraint  which  made  it  impossible  for  them  to  show  what  was  in  them. 
Mr.  Fitch,  who  devoted  his  attention  to  the  Bulletin,  was  a  forceful  edito- 
rial writer,  and  he  had  able  assistants  in  Matthew  G.  Upton  and  William 
Bartlett,  the  latter  being  especially  proficient  in  the  discussion  of  eco- 
nomic subjects.  Mr.  Fitch  had  early  assumed  an  attitude  of  intense  hos- 
tility to  public  expenditure  and  became  the  champion  of  the  dollar  limit 
in  taxation.  The  exposure  of  the  corruption  of  the  city  government  pre- 
ceding the  Vigilante  outbreak  had  prepared  the  public  mind  to  accept  as 
the  last  word  in  municipal  management  opposition  to  everything  remotely 
resembling  unnecessary  expenditure.  This  was  the  position  taken  by  the 
People's  party,  which  came  into  existence  about  the  time  of  the  adoption 
of  the  Consolidation  Act  in  1856,  and  which  retained  power  for  nearly 
fourteen  years,  chiefly  because  of  the  dread  of  debt  fostered  by  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Bulletin. 

There  is  a  perfect  agreement  among  old-timers  that  the  Bulletin  per- 
formed a  valuable  public  service  for  a  period,  but  that  the  benefits  con- 
ferred were  later  offset  by  the  failure  of  the  extreme  advocates  of  municipal 
economy  to  recognize  the  necessity  of  a  -city  keeping  abreast 
ff^Hand"*^^*^  °^  *^^^  world  in  the  matter  of  improvements.  The  Bulletin 
to  Mouth  ^^^^  pinned  its  faith  to  Hawes'  system  of  checks  and  balances, 

Finance  which    was   so   skillfully  framed  that  it   permitted   scarcely 

anything  else  than  the  collection  and  expenditure  of  money 
on  the  hand-to-mouth  plan.  The  instrument  was  absolutely  inflexible,  but 
there  is  reason  for  doubting  that  it  accomplished  any  real  economies  after 
it  had  been  in  force  fpr  sometime.  It  was  the  stumbling  block  in  the  Avay 
of  procuring  a  charter  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  city,  and,  while  it  was  in 
operation,  it  compelled  lobbying  at  Sacramento  to  secure  authorization  to 
do  anything  out  of  the  usual.  Its  hide-bound  provisions  were  responsible 
for  the  fact  that  San  Francisco  had  no  people's  pleasure  ground,  maintained 
by  the  public,  until  1870,  and  that  finally,  when  in  that  year  it  was  re- 
solved to  build  a  new  City  Hall  in  place  of  the  makeshift  affair  on  Kearny 
street  fronting  Portsmouth  square,  it  was  some  twenty-eight  or  thirty 
years  in  course  of  construction,  and  when  finished  was  a  hybrid  structure 
totally  lacking  in  symmetry  owing  to  the  changes  in  the  original  plans.  It 
cost  over  six  million  dollars,  an  absurdly  extravagant  expenditure,  con- 
sidering the  result. 

This  exhibition  of  incompetence  was  unquestionably  caused  by  adher- 
ence to  the  fatuous  "pay-as-you-go"  plan,  which  actually  put  the  city  in 


The  Opposition  to  Pennies  147 

the  same  financial  position  as  the  housewife  who  buys  a  piece  of  furniture 
and  pays  for  it  in  installments.     The  city  was  not  alone  obliged  to  pay 
excessive  prices  for  this  piecemeal  construction,  but  had  to 
N       C't  submit  to  tlie  humiliation  of  being  gibed  by  strangers  and  the 

Hall  edifice,    costly    though    it   had    proved   to   be,    was   jokingly 

Ruin  alluded  to  as  "the  New  City  Hall  Euin."    There  was  a  colos- 

sal blunder  in  the  inception  of  the  project  clearly  traceable 
to  the  mental  attitude  produced  by  incessantly  dwelling  upon  the  necessity 
of  adhering  rigidly  to  a  maximum  taxation  system.  To  secure  support  for 
the  scheme  of  building  a  new  City  Hall  the  bait  was  offered  that  a  large 
portion  of  the  money  that  would  be  required  for  its  construction  could  be 
obtained  by  selling  a  part  of  what  had  been  the  Yerba  Buena  Cemetery. 
And  thus  it  happened  that  the  six  million  dollar  City  Hall  was  built  on  a 
side  street,  the  frontage  on  Market  being  sold  by  the  municipality  to  obtain 
funds.  The  unwisdom  of  this  proceeding  has  been  shown  since  by  the  pur- 
chase for  several  million  dollars  of  a  site  which  will  give  the  City  Hall  now 
in  course  of  construction  an  outlook  on  a  specially  created  center,  but  which 
does  not  permit  its  imposing  proportions  to  be  fairly  viewed  from  the 
city's  most  important  thoroughfare. 

In  like  manner,  the  undue  caution  begotten  by  the  dollar  limit  in  taxa- 
tion idea  must  be  held  responsible  for  the  existing  water  supply  situation ; 
that  and  the  fear  that  the  owners  of  the  existing  system  would  profit  too 
greatly  if  its  creators  should  derive  any  profit  from  their  en- 
D^n  f  't  terprise.  There  can  be  no  doubt  respecting  the  honesty  of 
and  the  ^^^  opposition  of  the  Bulletin  and  Call  to  the  acquisition  of 

Water  Supply  the  Spring  Valley  property  in  the  early  seventies  for  a  sum 
which  was  not  greatly  in  excess  of  its  value.  The  fear  that 
the  issuance  of  bonds  would  break  through  the  dollar  limit  of  taxation, 
however,  was  much  more  potent  in  producing  antagonism  than  any  appre- 
hension which  may  have  existed  at  the  time  that  the  system  was  not  worth 
the  sum  demanded.  It  was  charged  that  Ealston  had  devised  a  scheme  to 
buy  for  $7,000,000  a  property  which  he  proposed  selling  for  $15,000,000. 
Whatever  may  have  been  his  intention,  the  Spring  Valley  system,  such  as 
it  was,  was  subsequently  offered  to  the  city  for  $13,500,000,  a  proposition 
which  was  countered  by  an  offer  from  the  city  of  $11,000,000,  which  was 
refused.  That  was  in  1877.  A  couple  of  years  later,  the  Constitution, 
which  was  derisively  called  a  sand-lot  instrument,  provided  in  express  terms 
for  the  regulation  of  water  rates  by  Boards  of  Supervisors,  and  its  adop- 
tion was  strenuously  advocated  by  The  Chronicle,  which  had  at  an  earlier 
date  favored  the  purchase  of  the  Spring  Valley  system,  and  with  equal 
strenuousness  was  opposed  by  the  Bulletin  and  Call,  which  had  attributed  to 
the  advocates  of  public  ownership  of  water  supplies  a  desire  to  forward  the 
desires  of  the  Spring  Valley  corporation  to  unload  its  property  on  the  city. 
The  keynote  of  municipal  politics  throughout  the  entire  period  between 
1856  and  the  adoption  of  a  charter  which  took  the  place  of  the  antiquated 
consolidation  act,  was  the  taxation  limit.  Extreme  devotion  to  this  one 
idea  is  justly  chargeable  with  the  long  and  infamous  rule  of  the  blind 
Democratic  boss,  Chris  Buckley,  who  used  the  slogan  of  the  dollar  limit 
to  retain  his  hold  on  the  organization  and  dictate  policies  to  the  highest 
and  least  members  of  the  party.  Buckley  came  to  the  surface  in  the  early 
eighties  and  was  driven  out  of  town  by  a  pamphlet  launched  against  him 


148  Journalism  in  California 

by  former  iState  [Senator  Jeremiah  Lynch,  which  mercilessly  exposed  his 
methods.    The  blind  boss  was  gifted  with  cunning  and  was  quite  willing  to 
permit  the  municipal  tickets  put  forward  under  his  auspices 
Blind  Boss  ^^  headed  with  good  men.     He  did  not  even  shrink  from 

Chris  tlie  acceptance  of  such  a  man  as  E.  B.  Pond,  who,  as  a  Super- 

Buckley  visor,  had  earned  the  honorable  distinction  of  being  called 

"the  watch  dog  of  the  treasury,"  as  Mayor,  and,  wittingly  or 
unwittingly,  newspapers,  beguiled  by  the  non-partisan  idea,  because  the 
head  of  the  ticket  was  sound  on  the  question  of  taxation,  assisted  the  boss 
in  his  nefarious  rule,  which,  if  half  the  stories  related  and  believed  and 
never  resented  by  him  were  true,  was  more  brazenly  corrupt  than  the 
infamous  Schmitz-Ruef  regime.  It  did  not  seem  to  matter  that  municipal 
expenditures  rose  from  $4,452,940  in  1876  to  over  $7,000,000  in  lcS90, 
without  anything  of  consequence  in  the  way  of  public  improvement,  pro- 
vided the  dollar  tax  limit  was  not  exceeded. 

Throughout  the  nineties  columns  of  the  Call,  Bulletin  and  Chronicle 
were  filled  with  discussions  concerning  the  desirability  of  promoting  the 
welfare  of  the  city  by  increasing  its  attractiveness.     Considerable  virulence 
was  introduced   into   arguments  which  the  reader  of  today 
Hostility  would  find  interesting  and  even  amusing.     The  Bulletin  was 

Smooth  uncompromisingly  opposed  to  any  departure  from  the  method 

Pavements  of  street  making  in  vogue  in  the  fifties.  It  was  willing  to 
admit  that  cobble  stones  were  not  quite  the  thing  for  paving 
the  thoroughfares  of  an  ambitious  metropolis,  but  its  editor  was  quite  sure 
that  nothing  could  surpass  in  durability  what  he  persisted  in  misnaming 
Belgian  blocks.  What  he  designated  as  such  were  merely  pieces  of  basaltic 
rock  roughly  shaped,  which  were  laid  loosely  in  a  bed  of  sand.  To  suggest 
a  resort  to  pavements  of  wooden  blocks  invited  opprobrious  comment.  De- 
spite the  fact  that  London,  Paris  and  other  cities  had  successfully  resorted 
to  this  style  of  thoroughfare,  the  Bulletin  unhesitatingly  denounced  it  as 
an  absolute  failure.  As  for  asphaltum  composition  and  bituminous  rock, 
they  were  contemptuously  referred  to  as  poultices.  The  Chronicle,  which 
saw  merit  in  smooth  pavements,  insisted  that  there  was  something  else  to  be 
considered  in  laying  a  roadw^ay  than  durability,  and  became  so  impatient 
with  the  extreme  conservatism  of  its  antagonist  it  charged  him  with  being 
a  "silurian,"  a  term  which  stuck. 

These  wordy  M'ars  concerning  municipal  improvement  and  politics  were 
mainly  confined  to  the  columns  of  the  Bulletin  and  Chronicle.     Mr.  Pick- 
ering was  never  very  vehement  in  the  expression  of  his  views,  but  the  care- 
ful reader  could  guess  to  which  side  he  was  inclined,  despite 
^  the  caution  exercised  in  framing  opinions  and  statements  in 

Editorial  ^i^*^^!  ^  fashion  that  they  would  not  give  ofPense  to  the  most 

Policy  sensitive  subscriber.     The  Examiner  was  even  less  pronounced 

after  William  R.  Hearst  assumed  charge,  and  there  was  an 
intimation  thrown  out  very  soon  after  his  assumption  of  authority  tliat 
the  editorial  columns  of  a  newspaper  were  becoming  a  negligible  factor  in 
journalism.  Whether  that  opinion  was  genuinely  entertained  or  not,  it  is 
true  that  there  was  a  complete  revolution  of  method.  The  elaborate  dis- 
cussions which  once  characterized  the  Examiner  gave  way  to  disquisitions 
Avhose  flippant  disregard  of  orthodox  Democratic  doctrine  alarmed  the 
faithful,  and  the  belief  soon  became  current  that  Mr.  Hearst  could  not  be 


CHRIS   BUCKLEY 
The  Blind  Boss  of  the  Democratic  party. 


The  Opposition  to  Pennies  149 

depended  upon  to  support  party  policies.  It  was  apparent  to  the  most 
superficial  observer  that  the  changed  Examiner  was  more  intent  on  at- 
tracting attention  to  itself  by  doing  things  out  of  the  usual  than  it  was  con- 
cerned about  the  formation  or  interpretation  of  public  opinion.  This  idea 
was  not  tenaciously  adhered  to,  for,  after  the  first  flurry,  the  Examiner 
settled  down  to  solid  work  and  one  of  its  writing  editors,  Samuel  S.  Moffat, 
produced  a  series  of  articles  on  free  trade  which  were  afterward  put  into 
book  form  and  were  regarded  by  the  Democrats  of  that  period  as  the  last 
word  on  the  subject.  Mr.  Moffat  was  a  student  of  economics  and  was 
familiar  with  all  the  arguments  of  the  Manchester  school.  His  views  would 
hardly  harmonize  with  those  of  the  present-day  Examiner,  which  would 
be  coldly  regarded  by  any  one  grounded  in  the  theories  of  the  Cobdenites. 

The  change  in  the  conduct  of  the  Call  after  its  purchase  by  John  D. 
Spreckels  extended  to  every  department  of  the  paper.  Under  successive 
managers,  it  developed  differences  which  distinguished  it  from  the  Call  of 
earlier  days.  The  first  to  take  charge  was  Charles  M.  Short- 
Advocacy  of  pi(]gg^  whose  experience  in  journalism  was  largely  gained  in 
of  State's  ^^^  Jose.  Mr.  Shortridge  made  the  surprising  announce- 
Resources  ment  that  he  was  going  to  make  the  Call  a  real  California 

paper,  the  implication  being  that  its  rivals  were  not  sufficiently 
interested  in  the  development  of  the  commonwealth.  His  advent  in  metro- 
politan journalism  was  hailed  with  satisfaction  by  a  large  section  of  the 
interior  press,  but  it  did  not  endure  long,  for  it  soon  developed  that  the 
new  editor's  opinions  were  illusory,  and  that  there  really  was  no  possibility 
of  greatly  improving  on  the  methods  of  The  Chronicle,  which  for  many 
years  had  made  a  specialty  of  exploiting  the  resources  and  industries  of  the 
Golden  State  and  had  left  no  possible  chance  to  promote  its  prosperity  un- 
tried. Some  of  the  earlier  efforts  of  The  Chronicle  in  this  direction  have 
been  referred  to,  but  they  were  immeasurably  surpassed  by  later  exploits  in 
the  same  field.  Its  annual  reviews  of  the  progress  of  the  State  continued 
to  grow  in  comprehensiveness  year  after  year,  and  whenever  the  occasion 
presented  itself  to  promote  a  desirable  industry  it  was  promptly  seized. 

On  the  23d  of  August,  1889,  a  special  edition  was  issued,  eight  pages 
of  which  were  devoted  to  irrigation  in  California.  The  subject  was  then 
absorbing  a  great  deal  of  public  attention,  and,  under  the  title,  "How  to 
Make  the  Desert  Bloom,"  the  progress  in  reclamation  and 
Numerous^  *'^^  future  of  irrigation  were  fully  dealt  with.  It  returned 
Editions  ^0  the  subject  a  couple  of  years  later,  and,  on  June  7,  1891, 

Development  printed  thirteen  pages  on  the  subject  of  irrigation,  the 
Wright  law  being  particularly  considered.  On  May  24lh  of 
the  following  year,  mining  was  dealt  with  in  the  same  thorough  fashion, 
ten  pages  being  devoted  to  the  history  of  the  industry  on  the  Pacific  Coast. 
Eighteen  ninety-three  was  prolific  in  special  numbers.  On  January  1st  of 
that  year  twelve  pages  were  given  to  the  story  of  the  development  of  the 
State  under  Spanish  and  American  rule;  on  April  23d,  a  Columbian 
World's  Fair  edition  was  issued,  consisting  of  sixty-four  pages.  It  was  a 
complete  survey  of  the  growth  and  resources  of  California,  and  a  very  large 
edition  was  distributed  at  Chicago,  it  soon  being  found  by  the  State's  repre- 
sentatives that  the  easiest  way  of  thoroughly  acquainting  the  inquirer  con- 
cerning what  the  State  had  to  offer  was  to  present  him  with  a  copy  of  that 
issue  of  The  Chronicle.    On  the  31st  of  December,  to  signalize  the  opening 


150  Journalism  in  California 

of  the  Midwinter  Fair,  a  special  of  sixty-four  jxiges  was  issued,  in  which 
the  State's  best  foot  was  shoved  well  forward.  This  edition  Avas  profusely 
illustrated  and  introduced  something  new  in  the  way  of  newspaper  illus- 
tration in  the  shape  of  marginal  illustrations,  every  page  of  the  edition 
devoted  to  the  exploitation  of  California's  resources  being  thus  treated. 

In  the  early  part  of  its  career  and  until  the  region  north  of  California 

became  sufficiently  populous  to  support  metropolitan  papers  of  its  own,  The 

Chronicle  devoted  much  of  its  space  in  its  annuals  and  s[)ecial  numbers  to 

.  describing  the  progress  and  resources  of  Oregon  and  the  Ter- 

T?f^]?i^?><„«,  ritory  which  afterward  became  the  State  of  Washington.  It 
Neignboring         i"^j.  i        t,  •        p       ^t        i       xni  tat 

States  and         ^'^^  performed  a  like  service  tor  JSevada,  idalio  and  Mon- 

Territories  tana,  taking  pleasure  in  championing  their  interests  and  being 
foremost  in  advocating  their  admission  to  statehood.  It  had 
no  doubts  concerning  the  value  to  a  people  of  the  right  to  regulate  their  own 
affairs,  being  convinced  that  however  well  intentioned  Congress  and  the 
executive  departments  in  Washington  might  be  they  could  not  do  as  well 
for  communities  situated  thousands  of  miles  from  the  seat  of  government  as 
they  could  themselves.  On  this  theory  it  urged  the  admission  of  Arizona 
many  years  before  the  boon  of  statehood  was  conferred.  Its  tendencies  in 
this  direction  earned  for  it  the  distinction  of  being  regarded  as  a  Pacific 
Coast  journal.  Its  local  contemporaries  shared  this  interest,  but  they  were 
less  convinced  of  the  value  of  consistent  and  persistent  presentation  of  the 
resources  and  progress  of  the  region  "west  of  the  Rockies  than  The  Chroni- 
cle; at  least,  they  did  not  lay  as  much  stress  on  the  desirability  of  pro- 
moting its  settlement  as  The  Chronicle,  which  constantly  acted  on  the 
conviction  that  the  development  of  what  was  familiarly  termed  "the  Coast" 
would  redound  to  the  advantage  of  its  metropolis. 

It  was  upon  this  theory  that  The  Chronicle  boasted  of  the  climate  of 
California  and  its  attractiveness  long  before  the   people  of  Los  Angeles 
awoke  to  the  fact  that  climate  was  one  of  the  most  valuable  assets  of  South- 
ern  California.      In   an  editorial  written   shortly   after   the 
Southern  completion  of  the  railroad  which  linked  Los  Angeles  with 

Best  ^^^    Francisco,   The    Chronicle   predicted   that   in   tlie   near 

Adviser  future  people  from  the  East  would  find  their  way  to  that  city 

in  as  large  numbers  as  those  of  Europe  did  to  the  Riviera.  At 
a  later  period,  when  Los  Angeles  boasted  only  two  very  mediocre  hotels, 
the  Pico  House  and  the  Westminster,  it  pointed  out  that  hostelries  which 
would  rival  the  best  found  in  Eastern  resorts  would  prove  paying  invest- 
ments. It  saw  in  its  growth,  and  that  of  the  entire  region  south  of  tlie 
Teliachapi  a  promise  of  the  future  greatness  of  San  Francisco,  which  could 
only  occur  through  the  filling  up  of  tlie  State  and  the  development  of  its 
great  resources.  In  one  of  its  annual  issues,  that  of  January  1,  1<S85,  com- 
menting on  the  growth  of  traffic  by  rail  and  steamer  between  San  Francisco 
and  Los  Angeles,  it  said  :  "We  may  look  forward  to  the  day  when  at  least 
two  large  cities  will  grow  up  in  Southern  California,  and  when  that  time 
arrives  the  commerce  between  them  and  this  port  will  attain  proportions  we 
scarcely  dream  of  now."  The  prediction  has  been  fully  realized  and  has 
justified  the  policy  which  prompted  the  journalistic  course  which  so  greatly 
contributed  to  that  result. 

The  so-called    "non-contiguous   territory"   of   Hawaii   and   Alaska   has 
been  the  recipient  of  much  attention  from  San  Francisco  journals.     Ever 


The  Opposition  to  Pennies  151 

since  the  annexation  of  the  Hawaiian  group  of  islands  The  Chronicle  has 
studied  the  interests  of  its  inhabitants  and  has  sought  to  promote  them. 
It  was  not  singular  in  that  regard,  every  San  Francisco  paper 
Hawaiian  recognizing  the  intimate  commercial  relations  of  the  islanders 

Editions  of  ^^'ith  San  Franciscans,  but  the  attitude  of  The  Chronicle  on 
The  Chronicle  the  subject  of  protection  caused  it  to  take  a  more  active  part 
in  presenting  Hawaiian  claims  than  any  of  its  contemporaries, 
and  this  put  it  in  closer  touch  with  the  people  of  the  remote  Territory  than 
it  might  otherwise  have  been.  The  result  of  this  intimacy  was  the  is- 
suance of  special  Hawaiian  numbers  at  times  when  their  appearance  was 
particularly  opportune.  On  January  31,  1898,  a  twenty-page  edition,  con- 
taining "The  Story  of  Annexation,"  written  by  Walter  Gift'ord  Smith,  was 
published.  Mr.  Smith,  who  had  been  on  the  staff  of  The  Chronicle  for 
many  years,  having  acted  as  its  special  correspondent  during  the  war 
between  Japan  and  China,  was  sent  to  the  islands,  and  his  contribution  was 
one  of  the  best  articles  on  the  subject  written  by  the  small  army  of  scribes 
who  gave  the  subject  attention.  On  September  23d  following,  another 
special  Hawaiian  edition  was  published  which  was  more  particularly  de- 
voted to  describing  the  resources  of  the  islands.  Seven  pages  of  this  issue, 
which  was  entitled  "Hawaii,  the  Cross  Eoads  of  the  Pacific,"  dwelt  upon 
the  future  commercial  and  military  importance  of  the  then  recent  acquisi- 
tion. 

In  1897  the  news  of  the  gold  discoveries  in  the  Klondike  reached  San 
Francisco.     The  reports  of  the  richness  of  the  finds  were  so  alluring  that 
tliere  was  a  big  rush  to  the  new  diggings.     There  was  no  such  effect  pro- 
duced as  was  witnessed  in  pioneer  days,  when  the   Frazer 
^^g.  river  and  the  Klamath  beach  sand  stories  drew  so  many  away 

to  the  from  the  city  that  business  was  seriously  affected.     The  con- 

Baondike  ditions  had  changed  to  such  an  extent  that  departures,  even 

when  on  a  large  scale,  were  not  referred  to  as  an  exodus  or 
regarded  with  dissatisfaction.  There  was  a  prompt  recognition  of  the 
probability  that  all  the  gold  was  not  in  British  territory,  and  that  it  might 
be  the  country's  good  fortune  in  buying  Alaska  to  have  made  a  good  bar- 
gain. This  latter  consideration  was  a  large  factor  in  promoting  the  very 
lively  interest  displa3'ed  by  the  people  of  California  in  tlie  discovery  and 
induced  the  newspapers  of  San  Francisco  to  make  extraordinary  efforts  to 
get  the  facts  and  tell  the  story  of  the  hardships  encountered  by  those  who 
participated  in  the  rush  to  the  gold  fields.  On  July  29,  1897,  The  Chronicle 
sent  eight  men,  who  were  to  penetrate  the  frigid  and  unknown  country, 
and  the  accounts  they  sent  out  from  time  to  time  proved  absorbingly  inter- 
esting and  fully  corroborative  of  the  stories  which  caused  their  dispatch. 
On  Decem])er  30th,  The  Chronicle  published  a  special  edition,  "San  Fran- 
cisco, the  Gateway  to  Alaska."  Twelve  pages  were  filled  with  matter  relat- 
ing to  the  Territory,  its  commercial  relations  with  San  Francisco  and  its 
known  resources.  It  was  remarkable  for  the  optimistic  predictions  of  the 
writers,  whose  information  enabled  them  to  picture  probabilities  which 
would  have  been  in  a  fair  way  of  realization  before  this  if  the  fatuous 
course  of  the  authorities  at  Washington  had  not  interposed  obstacles  which 
are  only  now  in  a  fair  way  of  being  removed. 

During  the  nineties,  The  Chronicle  made  another  innovation  in  jour- 
nalism.    On  the  30th  of  June,  it  published  John  P.  Young's  "Bimetallism 

15 


152 


Journalism  in  California 


A  Book 
on  Finance 
Printed  in  a 
Single  Issue 


or  Monometallism,"'  of  which  the  Bimetallist  of  London,  England,  re- 
marked :  "It  consists  of  twenty-five  chapters,  and  occupies  sixty-three 
columns,  an  amount  of  space  probably  unprecedented  in  news- 
paper literature."  It  was  stated  by  Arthur  McEwen  in  his 
comments  on  its  appearance  that  it  was  the  first  attempt  of 
a  daily  paper  in  America,  or  anywhere  else,  to  furnish  its 
readers  with  an  exhaustive  treatise  on  a  subject  uppermost 
in  the  people's  mind.  Although  copyrighted,  it  had  the  peculiar  distinc- 
tion of  being  pirated  by  Congress,  a  member  of  the  House  reading  the 
major  part  of  it  into  the  Record.  Another  treatise  on  the  "Development  of 
the  Manufacturing  Industries  of  Japan,"  by  the  same  author,  was  printed 
as  a  United  States  Senate  document.  It  appeared  on  February  2,  189G, 
and  consisted  of  four  pages,  and  anticipated  much  that  has  happened  in 
an  industrial  way  in  Japan  since  that  date.  The  economic  bias  of  The 
Chronicle  was  displayed  during  the  nineties  in  numerous  other  extended 
treatises.  On  September  13,  181)6,  it  devoted  seven  pages  to  a  description 
of  the  "Industrial  and  Commercial  Crowtli  of  the  United  States,"  the  article 
being  designed  to  show  the  advances  made  by  the  country  under  the  pro- 
tective system. 

No  paper  in  the  country  has  a  more  consistent  record  as  an  exponent 
of  the  benefits  of  the  protective  system  than  the  San  Francisco  Chronicle. 
Almost  from  its  birth  it  advocated  the  policy,  and  in  later  years  it  became 
a  recognized  authority  on  the  subject,  its  articles  being  quoted 
in  and  out  of  Congress,  and  by  the  leading  protective  organ- 
izations of  the  United  States.  Mr.  de  Young  elevated  it  above 
all  other  policies  of  the  paper.  As  a  protective  journal,  Tlic 
Chronicle's  chief  distinction  consisted  in  its  thoroughness,  and 
it  did  more  to  expose  the  vulnerability  of  the  arguments  of  the  Manchester 
school  of  economists  than  the  most  of  its  protective  contemporaries.  It  was 
a  pronounced  advocate  of  the  policy  of  building  up  a  home  market,  and 
unceasingly  assailed  the  fallacy  of  overrating  the  importance  of  foreign 
trade.  As  early  as  1882,  it  predicted  that  steadfast  adherence  to  the  policy 
of  promoting  a  domestic  manufacturing  industry  would  result  in  bringing 
consumer  and  producer  so  closely  together  that  the  farmer  would  not  need 
to  worry  about  a  foreign  market,  and  that  the  result  would  be  the  elimina- 
tion of  the  great  waste  involved  in  transporting  agricultural  products  to 
distant  countries.  The  prediction  has  long  since  been  realized.  The  vast 
home  market  already  absorbs  the  products  of  the  farm,  and  it  will  soon  be 
al)le  to  consume  all  the  cotton  produced  by  planters  if  the  United  States 
returns  to  sanity  and  adheres  to  the  idea  which  made  it  prosperous  in  the 
past — that  of  promoting  all  industries  on  our  soil  by  extending  adequate 
protection  to  producers  whether  they  be  manufacturers,  farmers  or  cotton 
planters. 


Advocacy 
of  the 
Protective 
Policy 


CHAPTER  XIX 


CHANGING    METHODS    AND    FEATUEES    OF 
MODEEN    NEWSPAPEES. 

Effect  of  the  Cheapening  of  Printing  Paper — Cause  of  the  Popularity  of  the  Sunday 
Magazine — Contributors  of  the  Highest  Kank — The  Sunday  Magazine  Has 
Eliminated  ' '  Grub  Street ' ' — Development  of  the  Syndicate — Effect  of  Illustra- 
tion on  the  Production  of  Magazine  Matter — Improvement  in  the  Production  of 
Pictures — Introduction  of  Typesetting  Machines — General  Adoption  of  the 
Linotype  by  Mewspaper  Offices — Growing  Propensity  to  Dress  Papers — Introduc- 
tion and  Use  of  the  Telephone — Care  Taken  to  Verify  Rumors  and  State  Facts 
Correctly — The  Part  Played  by  the  Telephone  in  Getting  at  the  Truth — General 
Use  of  Typewriting  Machines  in  Newspaper  Offices — Copyreaders  and  Composi- 
tors Grateful  for  Their  Introduction — Shorthand  Reports  Not  Commonly  Made  in 
American  Newspaper  Offices — Effect  of  Longhand  Reporting  on  the  Develop- 
ment of  Literary  Style — The  First  Sunday  Editor  of  The  Chronicle — Writers 
Who  Came  From  the  Case — Attaches  of  The  Chronicle  Who  Have  Made  Their 
Mark — Well-known  San  Francisco  Newspaper  Men  Now  in  Other  Fields — Frank 
Norris'  Early  Connections — The  Chronicle's  City  Editors. 


FTE  invention  of  tlie  perfecting  press  has  claimed  most  of 
the  credit  of  promoting  the  growth  of  the  newspaper 
reading  ha!)it  in  the  United  States.  It  undoubtedly 
contributed  more  than  any  factor  to  the  possibility  of 
production  on  a  scale  whicli  easily  permitted  the  plac- 
ing of  any  number  of  papers  desired  in  the  hands  of 
readers,  ])ut  the  cheapening  of  white  paper  by  tlie  resort 
to  wood  pulp  as  the  principal  stock  for  its  manufacture 
and  the  improvement  of  tlie  machinery  used  in  making  it  played  its  full 
share.  Had  the  processes  of  paper  manufacturing  not  been  revolutionized 
the  perfecting  press  would  have  shared  the  experience  of  a  sixty-horse  power 
automobile  compelled  by  ordinance  to  not  exceed  a  six-mile  speed  limit.  It 
could  have  performed  any  service  demanded  of  it,  but,  if  white  paper  had 
remained  high  priced,  its  output  would  have  been  curtailed  1)y  the  inability 
of  purchasers  to  profitably  print  many-paged  editions.  As  it  is,  despite  its 
relative  cheapness,  the  cost  of  the  white  paper  in  the  hig  Sunday  editions, 
and  the  huge  special  issues,  often  exceeds  the  amount  at  which  the  paper 
is  sold.  It  is  a  fact  not  often  considered  by  the  reader,  wdio  takes  his 
paper  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  the  modern  newspaper,  relatively  to 
cost  of  production,  is  the  cheapest  of  all  manufactured  products;  a  result 
entirely  due  to  a  degree  of  voluntary  co-operation  not  attained  in  any 
other  business. 

The  perfecting  press  and  cheap  j)aper,  however,  must  share  with  several 
concurrent  improvements  the  distinction  the  newspaper  has  achieved  in  the 

153 


154  Journalism  in  California 

United  States — that  of  hecoiuiiig  the  ]Jeo})le's  library.     This  is  a  country  in 
^vhich  libraries,  large  and  small,  abound,  and  there  are  proljably  more  col- 

lec-tions  of  books  in  private  ownership,  not  dignified  by  the 
Sunday  ^^^^^  °^  library,  but  which,  numerically  considered,  miglit  be 

Magazine's        ^o  regarded,  than  the  whole  of  Europe  contains.     Neverthe- 
Popularity         less,  and  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  output  of  "best 

sellers"  is  enormous,  and  that  the  sale  of  standard  works 
is  on  a  scale  whicli  makes  the  demand  for  such  publications  by  other 
peoples  seem  small,  it  is  true  that  the  chief  mental  pabulum  of  the  Ameri- 
can people  is  the  contents  of  their  newspapers.  And  it  may  be  urged  in 
response  to  the  adverse  criticism  this  sometimes  calls  forth  that  the  best 
products  of  modern  literature  sooner  or  later,  in  some  form  or  other,  fi.nd 
their  way  into  the  Sunday  magazine,  which  is  at  once  an  anthology,  a 
repository  of  knowledge,  a  compendium  of  history  and  often  history  itself. 
It  is  the  fashion  to  speak  lightly  of  the  Sunday  magazine  because  it  is  not 
wholly  made  up  of  contributions  which  a  fastidious  literary  taste  could  ap- 
prove, and  it  is  said  that  a  cultivated  person  can  find  in  its  columns  only  a 
small  proportion  of  matter  really  worth  while,  but  if  that  is  a  defect  it  is 
one  it  shares  in  common  with  the  greatest  libraries  whose  shelves  harbor  a 
hundred  books  that  are  never  read  to  one  that  is. 

The  popular  judgment  concerning  the  value  of  the  Sunday  magazine 
has  long  since  received  the  indorsement  of  the  most  gifted  in  the  ranks  of 
authorship.     There  is  no  writer  of  consequence  today  unappreciative  of  the 

opportunity  it  affords  to  get  his  work  before  the  people,  or 
^    -  who  disdains  the  rewards  it  offers.     It  has  lifted  the  man  of 

Glad  to  letters  out  of  the  slough  of  despond  and  given  him  a  chance 

Contribute         in  the  struggle  for  existence.     It  has  eliminated  Crub  street, 

and  has  enabled  genius  to  market  its  literary  wares  at  a  figure 
somewhat  commensurate  with  their  value.  The  author  of  merit  no  longer 
burns  the  midnight  oil  in  a  garret;  oftener  than  otherwise  he  revels  in  the 
blaze  of  electricity  and  lives  in  marble  halls,  because  he  is  able  to  reach  a 
world  of  readers  through  the  Sunday  magazine.  That  he  can  do  so  is  due 
in  large  part  to  the  development  of  the  "syndicate,"  which  had  its  origin  in 
the  early  nineties.  It  is  possible  that  the  plan  of  sharing  the  cost  of  a  story 
or  other  product  of  the  pen  among  several  simultaneous  users  of  the  same 
may  have  been  practiced  at  an  earlier  period,  but  it  was  not  until  about  that 
time  that  S.  S.  McClure  began  to  develop  the  system  of  thus  marketing 
literary  wares  which  has  since  attained  to  such  large  proportions.  On 
March  1,  1S91,  The  Chronicle  began  the  publication  of  a  series  of  letters 
written  by  Eobert  Loiiis  Stevenson,  entitled  "In  Southern  Seas."  It  ap- 
pears as  special  correspondence  of  the  paper,  and  was  shared  with  four  or 
five  Eastern  journals.  When  McClure  first  inaugurated  the  service,  the 
patrons  of  his  syndicate  published  the  article  or  story  in  advance  of  its 
appearance  in  book  form,  protecting  the  author  by  copyright.  Later,  he 
developed  the  practice  of  selling  the  privilege  of  printing  after  the  book 
had  been  placed  on  the  market. 

In  the  earlier  nineties,  the  opportunity  to  secure  matter  from  a  syndi- 
cate was  welcomed  by  the  Sunday  editor  of  The  Chronicle.  Aspirants  for 
literary  fame  were  less  common  then  than  they  became  later,  and  it  was 
often  difficult  to  secure  enough  contri])ntions  to  make  a  satisfactory  pres- 
entation.    But  this  condition  of  affairs  did  not  endure  long.     Very  soon 


i 


TiOBKiiT  LUL'iS  aTL:VL:x\«Ux\ 


Linotype  and  Color  Press  155 

after  the  zinc  etching  process  liad  reached  such  a  stage  of  development  that 
the  Lydia  Pinlvham  jol<e  ceased  to  be  funny  there  was  a  fine  crop  of  authors, 

and  it  was  no  longer  necessary  to  prepare  special  articles  to 
Wellcome  "^^^^  ^^P"  "^^^^'^'  although  illustrated  papers  continued  to  be 

the  written  by  the  office  force.    The  ofterings  from  outsiders  were 

Syndicate  largely  made  up  of  fiction  and  descriptions  of  Pacific  Coast 

life.  Letters  of  foreign  travel  were  received  in  greater  num- 
ber, but  they  were  no  longer  a  leading  feature,  as  they  had  been  during  the 
eighties,  when  the  ability  to  parade  five  on  the  first  page,  each  from  a  differ- 
ent continent,  was  considered  somewhat  of  an  achievement.  About  this 
time,  great  industry  was  displayed  in  tlie  preparation  of  special  descriptive 
articles  which  were  helped  out  by  illustration,  and  ])ictures  were  used  to  add 
to  the  attractiveness  of  foreign  letters.  This  practice  was  not  long  in  vogue 
before  the  Sunday  editor  began  to  exact  photographs  from  contri])utors, 
or  at  least  it  came  to  be  understood  that  a  letter  or  an  article  accompanied 
by  drawings  or  pictures  had  a  better  chance  of  acceptance  than  if  it  de- 
pended solely  on  its  literary  qualities  to  win  favor. 

The  use  of  color  in  newspaper  illustration  had  been  resorted  to  in 
1886,  but  the  work  was  done  on  a  slow  press.  It  was  not  until  1901  that 
color  was  regularly  employed  on  the  first  and  last  pages  of  the  Sunday 

magazine.  This  was  made  practicable  by  inventions  which 
^^^   g  made  it  possible  to  produce  several  tints  simultaneously  on  a 

in  perfecting  press  operated  at  a  high  rate  of  speed.     At  first, 

Illustrations      only  plates  made  from  line  drawings  were  used,  but  it  was  not 

long  before  half  tones  were  essayed.  These,  when  printed 
directly  from  the  stereotype  plates,  were  often  unsatisfactory,  and  various 
devices  were  resorted  to  in  order  to  overcome  the  tendejicy  of  the  illustra- 
tion to  fill  up  and  become  a  mere  blotch.  For  a  while,  it  was  the  practice 
to  insert  the  zinc  etching  in  tiie  stereotype  plate  and  print  directly  from  it, 
but  the  time  consumed  made  this  method  objectionable.  A  way  out  of  the 
difficulty  was  found  l)y  the  use  of  a  coarse  screen  in  pliotograi)liing  the 
picture  to  be  etched  for  insertion  in  a  set  of  color  plates.  By  the  employ- 
ment of  a  patented  process  by  which  the  crudeness  of  the  colors  was  greatly 
modified  by  the  intervention  of  stippling,  cross  hatching,  etc.,  and  improve- 
ments in  etching  methods  and  the  touching  up  of  photographs,  the  illumi- 
nated pages  of  the  Sunday  magazine  are  now  made  attractive,  even  if  not 
sufficiently  artistic  to  be  hung  on  the  line  in  a  gallery.  It  is  only  fair  to 
add  that  the  limitations  imposed  by  a  rapid  press  and  ordinary  uncalendered 
newspaper  prevent  justice  being  done  to  the  workers  on  daily  journals,  many 
of  whom  are  capable  artists  and  are  recognized  as  such  by  the  ])rofcssion. 
About  the  time  of  the  introduction  of  the  color  press,  a  machine  known 
as  the  linotype  was  beginning  to  attract  attention.  Typesetting  machines 
had  been  invented  as  early  as  1869  and  were  in  use  in  the  composition  room 

of  the  London  Times.  At  the  same  time,  French  inventors 
Introduction  ^^^^^  experimenting  and  extraordinary  claims  were  made  for 
Typesetting  a  machine  an  abbe  was  said  to  be  perfecting,  the  use  of  which 
Machines  would  enable  an  operator  to  play  on  a  keyboard  with  both 

hands,  and  it  was  claimed  that,  like  a  performer  on  the  piano, 
who  strikes  several  keys  simultaneously,  thus  producing  desired  sounds,  he 
could  by  similar  manipulation  release  with  great  rapidity  the  matrices  from 
which  type  would  be  cast  and  set  up  in  the  form  of  words.    The  talk  about 


156  Journalism  in  California 

this  and  other  typesetting  machines  made  publishers  cautious,  inclining 
them  to  a  waiting  policy  which  would  permit  them  to  choose  the  best. 
Meanwhile,  a  man  living  in  Baltimore,  named  Otto  Mergenthaler,  invented 
a  machine  which  worked  on  an  entirely  different  principle.  Instead  of  cast- 
ing single  types,  Mergenthaler's  linotype,  as  the  name  implies,  casts  a 
whole  line.  It  is  operated  from  a  keyboard  resembling  that  of  a  typewrit- 
ing machine.  When  the  operator  touches  a  letter  on  the  board  a  matrix 
descends  from  a  magazine  to  a  position  close  to  a  pot  of  molten  metal ;  when 
a  line  of  these  matrices,  by  successively  touching  the  proper  letters,  is  in 
place  they  form  a  mold  into  which  the  molten  metal  is  injected  by  a  pump, 
and  a  line  of  type  is  cast.  If  an  error  is  made  by  the  operator  it  neces- 
sitates the  resetting  of  the  entire  line,  but  the  process  does  not  occupy  as 
much  time  as  the  correction  of  a  line  set  by  hand.  An  ingenious  contrivance 
restores  the  matrices  to  their  proper  places  in  the  magazine,  to  be  used  over 
and  over  until  worn  out. 

Before  the  nineties  were  well  advanced,  publishers  had  made  up  their 
minds  that  the  Mergenthaler  machine  had  no  rival,  and,  in  the  course  of  a 
few  years,  many  thousands  of  them  were  in  operation  in  the  composing 

rooms  of  the  United  States  and  Europe.  The  use  of  the 
^tt^^x-  a.  linotype  would  have  effected  decided  economies  for  publishers 
Dressing  ^'^^^^  ^'^^  mode  of  making  up  a  paper  in  vogue  before  its  intro- 

Papers  duction  not  been  changed.    It  was  not  long  after  it  came  into 

general  use  that  the  disposition  to  dress  matter  so  as  to  give 
the  page  a  more  attractive  appearance  began  to  manifest  itself.  Heads 
grew  larger  and  larger,  borders  were  freely  employed,  and  instead  of  a  uni- 
form body  type  of  nonpareil  or  agate  being  used,  large  quantities  of  space 
were  sacrificed  in  displaying  reading  matter  by  setting  it  in  type  larger  than 
was  formerly  devoted  to  captions,  and  by  leading  it  liberally.  The  use  of 
illustrations  also  made  demands  on  the  compositors,  and  soon  the  number 
of  the  latter  1)egan  to  increase.  The  facility  with  which  large  quantities  of 
matter  could  be  rapidly  prepared  for  the  forms,  the  cheapening  of  paper 
and  active  rivalry  soon  had  their  effect,  and  the  saving  made  by  the  lino- 
type was  no  longer  perceptible  in  the  footings  of  the  composing  room  pay 
rolls. 

In  tracing  the  changes  made  by  modern  inyentions  and  improved  ma- 
chinery in  the- methods  of  producing  a  newspaper,  the  telephone  must  not 
be  overlooked.     It  was  not  forgotten  when  The  Chronicle  entered  its  new 

home  on  the  corner  of  Kearny  and  Bush  streets  in  1879,  in 
In^oduction  -^yiji(^-}^  one  of  the  first  switch  boards  in  the  city  was  installed. 
of  the  At  first,  owing  to  the  small  number  of  patrons  of  the  new 

Telephone         system,  the  great  value  of  the  new  convenience  was  scarcely 

realized.  Indeed,  for  a  time,  the  instrument  was  oftener  used 
to  acquaint  visitors  with  its  marvelous  power  of  transmitting  the  human 
voice  than  to  serve  a  useful  purpose.  It  is  doubtful  if  the  tlien  city  editor 
had  the  remotest  conception  of  the  part  it  would  one  day  play  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  his  department  of  the  paper.  He  may  have  thought  that 
it  would  prove  handy  occasionally  to  send  a  message,  but  he  hardly  dreamed 
that  it  would  almost  completely  displace  the  messenger  boy,  who  could 
easily  be  summoned  by  means  of  the  district  call  system,  and  that  some  day 
he  would  have  his  staff  constantly  within  the  hearing  of  his  directing  voice. 
When  the  usefulness  of  the  "phone"  became  recognized  by  an  increasing 


Linotype  and  Color  Press  157 

number  of  people,  and  when  finally  practically  every  public  office,  business 
house  and  nearly  every  private  residence  in  the  city  patronized  the  system 
its  value  became  incalculable. 

There  still  lingers  in  the  popular  mind  an  idea  which  must  be  a  survival 
from  the  period  when  news  gathering  was  less  systematized  than  at  present, 
that  daily  papers  experience  some  dithculty  in  filling  their  columns,  and  that 
the  person  bringing  "a  piece  to  put  in  tomorrow"  is  a  bene- 
to  Veri^^"  factor.  Occasionally,  the  volunteer  reporter  does  recognize  a 
All  piece  of  news  when  he  meets  it  face  to  face,  but  ofteuer  than 

Statements  otherwise  he  is  apt  to  mistake  something  in  which  he  is  par- 
ticularly interested  for  real  intelligence.  But  it  is  from  the 
steady  stream  of  visitors  to  his  office  and  the  "tips"  he  receives  over  the 
phone  that  the  city  editor  gets  the  clews  which  enable  liim  to  work  up  what 
in  the  parlance  of  the  local  room  is  known  as  "a  story."  Not  only  does  he 
get  tips  through  the  telephone,  but  that  valuable  instrument  enables  him 
quickly  to  ascertain  whether  the  pointers  he  obtains  are  worth  following  up. 
Eumors  spread  rapidly  in  a  great  city,  and  if  all  those  floating  into  a  news- 
paper office  from  the  outside  had  to  be  verified  by  the  expenditure  of  leg 
energy,  reportorial  work  would  be  much  more  arduous  than  it  is  at  present, 
for,  notwithstanding  a  too  common  assumption,  no  pieCe  of  news  appears 
in  a  daily  paper  without  an  attempt  at  verification.  If  errors  occur,  they 
are  due  to  the  fallibility  of  human  nature  and  the  general  propensity  of  the 
irresponsible  to  see  things  on  the  bias,  or  to  misrepresent  what  they  have 
seen.  The  reporter  tries  to  get  things  straight,  but  anyone  familiar  with 
the  fact  that  honest  witnesses  testifying  under  oath  in  the  same  case  often 
tell  divergent  tales,  can  appreciate  the  difficulty  the  reporter  experiences  in 
his  efforts  to  get  at  the  truth. 

The  telephone  plays  an  important  part  in  this  work  of  verification  and 
is  used  freely  to  secure  as  near  an  approach  to  accuracy  as  possible.  The 
reporter  on  a  detail  is  told  something  which  has  a  bearing  on  the  subject  of 
his  inquiry,  the  truth  of  which  can  only  be  ascertained  by  a 
p"^t"pi"*  d  ^^^^^  ^°  ^  person,  perhaps  miles  distant  from  the  place  where 
Ijy  ^iig  he  is  pursuing  his  investigation.    He  promptly  telephones  liis 

Telephone  chief  and  he  at  once  secures  the  necessary  co-operation.  It 
not  infrequently  happens  that  a  number  of  inquiries  are  set 
in  motion  at  once  to  procure  the  facts  compressed  into  a  brief  item,  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  very  often  happens  that  the  result  of  many  calls  is 
effectually  to  dispose  of  a  rumor  which  no  one  can  tell  who  started,  or  what 
object  there  was  in  giving  it  currency.  But  the  most  important  use  of  the 
telephone  is  that  which  enables  the  city  editor  to  keep  in  touch  with  his 
staff,  who  apprise  him  of  the  progress  tliey  are  making  in  their  work,  thus 
enabling  him  to  apportion  the  space  he  has  at  his  command.  The  ability 
to  do  this  is  of  the  utmost  importance,  as  the  daily  problem  of  the  modern 
newspaper  is  to  crowd  a  quart  into  a  pint  cup.  The  local  and  suburban 
force,  acting  under  the  direction  of  the  city  editor  of  a  San  Francisco 
morning  daily,  if  permitted  to  do  so,  would  supply  copy  enough  to  fill  three 
papers.  If  stern  orders  to  keep  a  story  to  the  limit  assigned  were  not 
backed  up  by  blue  pencils  wielded  by  tlie  city  editor's  assistants  it  would 
be  impossible  to  print  the  matter  provided,  for  the  zealous  reporter  usually 
is  firndy  convinced  that  the  importance  of  his  contribution  is  underrated, 
and  that  what  he  has  written  will  not  stand  cutting. 


158  Journalism  in  California 

The  typewriting  machine  was  perfected  about  the  year  1876,  but  it 
did  not  fintl  its  way  into  general  newspaper  use  until  the  nineties.  There 
were  reporters  and  contributors  who  submitted  typewritten  manuscripts,  but 

tliey  were  few  in  number.  Telegraphic  operators  were  pro- 
General  riding  typewritten  copy  a  long  time  before  reporters  learned 
Typewriting  ^^^G  use  of  the  machine.  That  result  was  brought  about  by 
Machines  publishers  installing  typewriters,  with  the  understanding  that 

those  provided  with  them  should  learn  their  use.  It  did  not 
take  long  after  this  step  was  taken  to  convert  the  average  reporter  into  a 
good  typewriter.  There  were  some  recalcitrants  who  refused  to  learn  the 
art,  but  they  were  exceptions  to  the  rule  and  usually  had  some  special 
qualification  which  caused  their  bad  chirography  to  be  condoned.  The 
general  use  of  the  typewriter  has  greatly  decreased  the  arduousness  of  the 
work  of  copyreaders  and  has  enabled  them  to  devote  attention  to  the  sub- 
ject matter,  which  was  formerly  wasted  in  attempts  to  decipher  bad  hand- 
writing. The  printers  and  proofreaders  also  have  reason  for  being  grateful, 
for  it  not  infrequently  happened  when  handwritten  copy  was  the  rule,  that 
the  editor  would  shirk  a  riddle  and  pass  it  up  to  them  to  solve.  That  was 
usually  the  case  with  Joaquin  Miller's  articles  and  letters.  A  series  of  the 
latter,  written  to  The  Chronicle  from  Europe  in  the  nineties,  usually  went 
to  the  composition  room  in  a  half-guessed  state,  and  two  of  them,  after 
defying  the  effort  of  all  the  experts  in  the  office,  were  consigned  to  the  waste 
basket. 

The  services  of  stenographers  were  not  frequently  requisitioned  by 
the  editorial  departments  of  San  Francisco.  This  is  contrary  to  the 
popular  impression  that  reporters  are  familiar  with  shorthand.    As  a  matter 

of  fact,  very  few  learn  any  system,  although  many  become  pro- 
Shorthand  ficient  users  of  signs  of  their  own  invention.  On  those  rare 
jjQ^  jjj  occasions  wlien  a  great  daily  concludes  to  report  a  speech  or 

Demand  proceedings  of  any  kind  in  full,  the  services  of  professionals 

are  secured.  With  the  aid  of  "teams,"  they  accomplish  in  a 
very  brief  space  of  time  feats  of  reporting  which  could  only  be  achieved  by 
stenographers  in  constant  practice.  As  the  generality  of  meetings  are  re- 
ported in  a  summary  fashion,  reporters  would  find  too  voluminous  notes 
an  embarrassment  rather  than  a  convenience,  and,  for  that  reason,  few  of 
them  take  the  trouble  to  acquire  an  art  which  would  prove  of  little  use  to 
them.  Speakers  are  sometimes  severely  critical  of  the  condensation  to 
which  they  are  subjected  in  the  daily  press,  but  often  what  they  charac- 
terize as  misrepresentation  is  really  the  failure  to  print  all  the  good  things 
they  say,  and  which  they  think  should  be  glorified  in  printer's  ink. 

It  is  largely  owing  to  the  disregard  of  shorthand  reporting  that  the 
American  newspaper  press  has  developed  so  many  facile  writers,  who  have 
a  style  of  their  own  and  who  have  made  their  mark  in  literature.     The 

encouragement  of  the  descriptive  tendency  by  the  editors  of 
Newspaper  |]^g  daily  press  of  the  United  States  has  called  into  existence 
Become^Facile  '^  small  army  of  contributors  to  magazines,  reviews  and  other 
Writers  periodical  publications.    During  the  nineties  there  were  many 

such  attached  to  the  San  Francisco  press  whose  names  when 
printed  are  promptly  recognized.  The  list  is  so  long  that  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  tell  in  detail  their  accomplishments,  and,  besides,  the  verdict  of 
the  public  has  already  been  passed  on  their  achievements,     ^ome  of  the 


JOAQUIN  MILLER 


Linotype  and  Color  Press  159 

number  are  still  on  deck,  as,  for  instance,  Edward  Hamilton,  whose  bril- 
liant work  has  been  a  feature  of  the  Examiner  for  nearly  thirty  years.  The 
work  of  this  school  compares  more  than  favorably  with  that  of  James 
O'Meara,  an  editor  of  pioneer  days,  who  continued  his  career  down  to  the 
close  of  the  nineteenth  century,  who  did  not  aim  at  brilliancy  but  enjoyed 
the  reputation  of  carefulness  and  accuracy.  Rollin  M.  Daggett,  member 
of  Congress  from  Nevada  and  afterward  Minister  to  Hawaii,  and  John 
Bonner,  for  many  years  in  charge  of  the  commercial  columns  of  a  leading 
New  York  paper,  were  in  another  class.  They  were  thoroughly  informed 
and  graceful  writers.  They  did  editorial  work  on  The  Chronicle  during 
several  years  and  were  succeeded  by  Marcus  P.  Wiggin,  Walter  Gifford 
Smith  and  Taliesin  Evans. 

The  first  Sunday  editor  of  The  Chronicle  was  the  managing  editor  of 
the  paper,  who  combined  with  his  other  duties  the  selection  of  the  special 
matter.     It  was  an  arduous  task,  owing  to  the  scarcity  of  contributions, 

■which  had  to  be  helped  out  by  specially  prepared  articles. 
s  d  Ed"t  Thomas  J.  Vivian,  an  exceedingly  versatile  writer,  provided 
of  The  many    of   these    and    assisted    in    dressing    up    some    which 

Chronicle  drifted  in  from  the  outside.     The  first  person  to  be  dignified 

by  the  title  of  Sunday  editor  of  a  San  Francisco  paper  was 
George  F.  Weeks,  who  began  his  career  as  a  typesetter  in  The  Chronicle 
office,  and  was  known  as  its  swiftest  compositor.  He  was  an  indefatigable 
worker  and  when  transferred  from  the  case  to  the  proofroom  he  amused 
himself  in  his  spare  moments  by  writing  special  articles,  which  suggested 
placing  him  in  charge  of  the  Sunday  magazine.  Frank  Bailey  Millard,  a 
name  well  known  in  literature,  also  had  his  literary  beginnings  in  The 
Chronicle  composing  room,  from  which  he  was  graduated  into  the  corps  of 
special  waiters.  Ernest  S.  Simpson,  for  many  years  city  editor  of  The 
Chronicle  and  afterward  managing  editor  of  the  Call,  was  one  of  the  early 
Sunday  editors  of  The  Chronicle,  as  w^ere  also  Will  Irwin  and  Eufus  Steele 
and  Miss  Mabel  Cr^ft.  Under  their  direction  the  magazine  section  of  the 
Sunday  Chronicle  attained  a  wide  distinction  for  originality  of  matter  and 
mode  of  presentation.  Among  other  names  well  known  outside  the  city 
are  those  of  Ira  E.  Bennett,  for  a  while  a  star  reporter  on  The  Chronicle 
and  subsequently  its  Washington  representative  and  now  editor  of  the 
Washington  Post,  and  J.  O'Hara  Cosgrave,  who  started  the  Weekly  Wave 
and  later  became  editor  of  a  New  York  magazine.  Chester  Bailey  Fernald, 
now  a  prosperous  playwright  in  London,  during  the  nineties  was  trying  his 
hand  at  writing  sketches  for  the  Sunday  Chronicle.  J.  C.  Klein,  Wallace 
Irwin  and  the  brothers  Andrew  and  Frederick  Lawrence,  who  have  since 
betaken  themselves  to  Eastern  fields,  w^ere  workers  on  the  staffs  of  both 
Examiner  and  Chronicle.  Andrew  Lawrence  is  now  the  publisher  of 
Hearst's  Chicago  American.  Kobert  Mackaye,  editor  of  Success,  com- 
menced his  career  in  The  Chronicle  local  room,  and  Arthur  Street,  who 
made  a  name  for  himself  as  a  magazine  editor,  also  had  had  his  training 
under  a  city  editor  of  that  paper. 

Harry  McDowell  and  Harry  Bigelow,  who  started  the  Ingleside  Maga- 
zine, were  star  reporters  on  the  Examiner,  and  they  contributed  a  great 
deal  of  the  vivacity  which  that  journal  took  on  after  William  Eandolph 
Hearst  assumed  its  direction.  Josiah  M.  Ward,  who  was  city  editor 
of    the    Examiner    during    most    of    the    period    when  A.    B.    Hender- 


160  Journalism  in  California 

son  was  managing  editor,  after  severing  his  connection  witli  that  journal, 
went  to  Denver,  where  he  took  charge  of  the  Times  of  that  city.  He  found 
time  to  write  an  interesting  historical  novel,  which  enjoyed  considerable 

popularity.  Charles  Frederick  Holder,  whose  natural  his- 
WellKnown  ^^j.y  work  became  very  well  known  to  readers  throughout 
Newspaper  ^^'^  country,  was  attached  to  the  staff  of  Mr.  Hearst's  paper 
Writers  about   this   time.      Ashton    Stevens,   who    did   the    dramatic 

column  for  the  Examiner,  sliared  with  Ambrose  Bierce  the 
reputation  of  being  bitingly  satirical,  and  their  writings  were  immensely 
enjoyed  by  that  large  class  which  has  a  predilection  for  vitriolic  criticism. 
Mr.  Bierce  directed  his  shafts  at  the  whole  of  mankind,  while  Stevens 
reserved  his  mainly  for  members  of  the  theatrical  profession.  Hugh  Hume 
and  J.  O'Hara  Cosgrave,  who  started  the  Wave,  graduated  from  the  local 
room  of  The  Chronicle  into  the  publication  business.  They  were  the  first 
to  recognize  the  value  of  Frank  Xorris'  work,  and  his  earliest  short  stories 
appeared  in  their  weekly  paper.  Mr.  Norris  for  a  time  was  strongly  inclined 
to  take  up  journalism  as  a  career,  but  soon  abandoned  the  idea  and  devoted 
himself  to  fiction,  with  a  degree  of  success  which  earned  for  him  a  world- 
wide reputation.  He  was  fond  of  the  atmosphere  of  a  newspaper  office  and 
spent  a  great  deal  of  his  time  in  the  library  of  The  Chronicle  gathering  data 
for  his  trilogy.  Another  California  author  of  distinction,  Mrs.  Gertrude 
Atherton,  in  the  beginning  of  her  literary  career  was  strongly  attracted  to 
journalism,  but,  after  surveying  the  field,  concluded  that  she  would  require 
a  bigger  stage  on  which  to  develop  her  talents. 

These  are  but  a  few  of  the  more  conspicuous  workers  of  the  nineties 
who  helped  earn  for  San  Francisco  journalism  the  reputation  of  being 
thoroughly  abreast  of  that  of  the  leading  cities  of  the  Union;  a  judgment 

whose  correctness  was  attested  by  the  success  which  attended 
'^f^th^°'^^  the  migration  of  many  who  had  their  training  in  local  offices. 
Qi^y  Not  all  of  those  who  won  distinction  on  the  staffs  of   San 

Editor  Francisco  newspapers  were  native  sons,  but  the  most  of  them 

became  sufficiently  acclimated  to  regard  themselves  as  genuine 
Californians;  and,  when  the  wanderlust  moved  some  of  them  to  reverse  the 
current  of  emigration  by  turning  their  footsteps  toward  the  rising  sun,  they 
usually  proclaimed  that  they  were  from  the  Golden  State.  But  there  were 
also  plenty  of  recruits  from  the  older  centers  of  population  who  made  their 
impress  on  the  journalism  of  San  Francisco,  and  the  list  is  not  wholly  or 
even  chiefly  confined  to  those  who  have  attained  to  pul)licity.  There  were 
plenty  of  journalists  during  the  nineties  who  did  far  more  effective  work 
for  the  papers  on  which  they  served  than  some  of  those  who  had  the  good 
fortune  to  get  their  names  before  the  public.  The  city  editors,  for  instance, 
who  knew  everyljody  and  were  known  to  all,  were  precluded  by  the  arduous- 
ness  of  their  administrative  duties  from  shining  before  men,  but  the  fact 
that  it  was  their  duty  to  see  that  the  stars  did  shine  testified  to  their 
capacity.  The  Chronicle  had  in  S.  F.  Sutherland,  A.  B.  Henderson,  Horace 
R.  Hudson,  I'homas  Garrett  and  Ernest  S.  Simpson,  who  successively  acted 
as  chiefs  of  the  city  department  lietween  1H70  and  lOOG,  as  capable  a  set  of 
newspaper  men  as  the  country  has  produced.  They  were  all  men  of  excep- 
tional ability,  thorough  organizers  and  excellent  executives,  and  had  the 
rare  talent  of  recognizing  merit  and  getting  the  very  best  out  of  the  men 
working  under  their  direction. 


CHAPTER  XX 


AFFAIRS  ON  THE   EVE   OF   SAN  FRANCISCO'S   GREAT 

DISASTER. 

Efforts  of  San  Francisco  to  Obtain  a  New  Charter — Strenuous  Opposition  of  Part 
of  the  Press  to  Abandoning  the  Consolidation  Act  of  1856 — Contests  Over 
Details — A  Charter  Finally  Adopted  in  1898 — The  Changed  Attitude  of  Bulletin 
and  Call  After  1895 — San  Francisco  Embarks  on  a  Career  of  Improvement — • 
Approval  of  Park  Panhandle  Boulevard  Project — The  Chronicle 's  Exposure  of 
Graft,  and  Its  Opposition  to  Grafters — Creation  of  the  Ruef-Schmitz  Machine — 
Eeformers  Who  Refused  to  Be  Stirred  Into  Action — Ruef  and  Schmitz  Claim 
That  Their  Administration  Brought  Prosperity  to  San  Francisco — The  Bitter 
Antagonism  of  The  Chronicle  to  the  Grafters — The  Burning  of  the  Tower  of 
The  Chronicle  Building — Suit  Brought  by  Members  of  Schmitz  Gang  Against 
The  Chronicle — It  Took  an  Earthquake  to  Rouse  the  Reformers  to  Action — The 
Visit  of  Roosevelt  to  San  Francisco — His  Approval  of  The  Chronicle's  Political 
Course — Protection  Versus  Bimetallism — Proprietor  of  The  Chronicle  Elects  to 
Stand  by  the  Former — Schemes  for  Beautifying  the  City — Summer  Outing 
Editions  of  The  Chronicle — Charity  Work  Done  by  Newspapers — Women's 
Clubs  and  the  Press — Cartooning,  and  Chronicle   Cartoonists. 


EFORE  the  opening  of  the  twentieth  century,  San  Fran- 
cisco had  obtained  a  much-needed  charter.  After  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  1879,  four  unsuccessful 
attempts  were  made  to  secure  a  new  organic  law  for  the 
city.  The  advocates  of  the  abandonment  of  the  consol- 
idation act,  which  had  done  duty  since  185G,  were 
emphatic  in  the  expression  of  the  opinion  that  the  city 
would  benefit  by  getting  rid  of  the  restrictions  of  the 
act,  which  were  imposed  while  the  fear  created  by  the  extravagance  of  the 
gang  suppressed  by  the  Vigilantes  was  still  dominant,  but  the  Bulletin  and 
Call  tenaciously  adhered  to  the  belief  that  the  community  could  not  be 
trusted  and  that  by  far  the  safest  plan  of  conducting  a  city  government 
was  that  of  the  prudent  man  who  refuses  to  incur  indebtedness  for  any 
purpose  whatever.  The  attitude  of  the  opposing  camps  can  best  be  de- 
scribed by  saying  that  the  demand  for  a  charter  came  from  those  who 
favored  improvement,  while  those  who  resisted  adoption  were  firmly  of  the 
opinion  that  if  the  city  cut  loose  from  the  consolidation  act  San  Francisco 
would  go  to  the  dogs.  But  the  fight  over  the  several  charters  voted  upon 
was  not  made  on  lines  thus  distinctly  drawn.  As  is  usual  when  an  instru- 
ment is  presented  for  the  consideration  of  electors  as  a  whole,  the  contest 
was  over  details.  The  first  charter,  rejected  in  1880,  was  beaten  at  the 
polls  because  intramural  burial  was  interdicted,  but  the  fact  that  the  Mayor 
was  given  some  authority  by  the  instrument  played  a  large  part,  the  awe- 

161 


162  Journalism  in  California 

some  question  being  asked,  what  would  the  community  do  if  it  should  be 
indiscreet  enough  to  elect  another  man  like  Kalloch. 

Looking  backward,  and  reviewing  the  statistics  of  the  five  charter  elec- 
tions, the  impression  is  derived  that  the  community  was  not  very  much 
in  earnest  about  the  matter,  and  that  those  who  urged  the  desirability  of 
public  improvements  did  not  represent  public  sentiment.    But 
Neglect  Ijjg  vigorous  wars  waged  in  the  newspapers  at  each  recurring 

Qj^i(,  attempt  and  the  accounts  of  speeches  delivered  at  meetings 

Duty  indicate  that  the  editors  believed  that  their  readers  were  inter- 

ested in  the  discussions.  Nevertheless,  when  election  day 
came  around  qualified  electors  stayed  away  from  the  polls  and  the  votes 
cast  were  ridiculously  small.  The  second  effort,  made  in  1883,  was  defeated 
by  only  thirty-two  votes  in  a  total  of  18,764  cast.  In  1887,  when  the  third 
essay  was  made,  the  vote  was  not  mucli  larger,  and  again,  in  1896,  there 
was  a  small  vote,  and  finally,  when  tlie  repeated  effort  to  get  a  charter  suc- 
ceeded in  1898,  there  were  only  26,969  who  voted,  although  at  the  general 
election,  two  years  earlier,  64,820  had  cast  their  ballots.  Thus,  after 
nineteen  years  and  numerous  contests,  San  Francisco  secured  the  doubtful 
privilege  of  running  into  debt,  which,  however,  she  was  slow  to  exercise, 
for  when  the  disaster  of  1906  came  the  city  was  still  practically  free  from 
indebtedness — a  fortunate  circumstance.  Had  the  editor  of  tlie  Bulletin 
still  been  presiding  over  the  destinies  of  that  paper  he  would  unquestion- 
ably have  reminded  his  readers  that  they  owed  to  his  vigorous  opposition 
to  bond  issues  the  existence  of  a  condition  which  made  the  outlook  for  the 
future  less  gloomy  than  it  might  otherwise  have  been ;  or,  perhaps,  had  not 
the  fearsome  pay-as-you-go  policy  prevailed,  the  city  might  long  before  1906 
have  acquired  a  water  system,  a  duty  which  has  been  criminally  neglected 
with  disastrous  effects. 

It  would  l)e  difficult  to  follow  the  policies  of  the  press  of  San  Francisco 
after  the  opening  of  the  twentieth  century.     The  purchase  of  the  Call  by 
John  D.  Spreckels,  which  occurred  in  1897,  was  followed  by  a  more  vigorous 
discussion  of  current  matters  and  a  modernization  of  methods, 
2"^*       .  and  there  was  a  like  change  in  the  conduct  of  the  Bulletin. 

Journalistic      TJ-  A.  Crothers,  who  acquired  an  interest  in  the  paper,  was 
Policies  tlie  brother-in-law  of  Loring  G.  Pickering,  and  managed  it 

for  the  widow  and  minor  son  of  the  latter,  who  were  jointly 
concerned  with  him  in  its  purchase.  Fremont  Older  was  made  managing 
editor,  and  most  of  _the  radical  departures  of  the  Bulletin  from  its  former 
course  are  attributed  to  him.  The  extreme  conservatism  which  was  a  pro- 
nounced feature  during  the  earlier  management  was  abandoned,  and,  in 
"make-up"  and  in  other  particulars,  the  methods  of  the  most  sensational 
evetiing  papers  of  the  Eastern  metropolis  were  adopted.  Large  type, 
abundant  illustration  and  other  journalistic  practices  abhorred  of  old  were 
freely  resorted  to  by  Older,  and  the  determination  to  attract  attention  was 
constantly  in  evidence.  But  the  most  conspicuous  departure  was  that  in- 
volved in  the  complete  change  of  attitude  toward  municipal  improvement, 
and  with  it  virtually  expired  the  long-continued  opposition  to  the  creation 
of  public  indebtedness,  which  had  for  years  divided  the  press  and  the 
people  of  the  city  into  two  camps. 

The  adoption  of  the  charter  of  1898  was  soon  followed  by  an  agitation 
for  improvements,  the  carrying  out  of  which  would  involve  the  expenditure 


Ruef  and  Schmitz  163 


of  great  sums  of  money.  One  of  these  provided  for  the  creation  of  a 
parked  boulevard  whicli  would  give  a  direct  driveway  from  Van  Ness 
avenue,  at  the  point  where  it  enters  Market  street,  to  the  Panhandle  of 
Golden  Gate  Park.  The  fear  which  had  caused  the  defeat 
The  City  ^^  ^^  least  two  charters,  that  untrustworthy  public  servants 

in  for  would  be  elected  and  squander  the  money  raised  by  borrow- 

Improvements  ing,  had  vanished  sufficiently  when  this  project  was  put  for- 
ward to  permit  its  acceptance  by  a  decided  majority.  There 
was  no  longer  an  apprehension  that  another  Kalloch  might  arise  to  disturb 
the  city's  repose.  A  few  years  had  sufficed  to  obliterate  the  memory  of  the 
sand-lot  Mayor,  and,  queerly  enough,  those  most  apprehensive  in  1879  had 
become  so  optimistic  that  they  were  imable  to  perceive  that  their  fears  were 
on  the  point  of  realization.  Again  The  Chronicle  had  to  assume  the  role  of 
Cassandra,  and,  like  the  warnings  of  the  prophetess  of  old,  its  admonitions 
went  unheeded.  In  the  contest  of  1901,  which  resulted  in  the  first  election 
of  Schmitz,  it  opposed  him  vigorously,  but  unfortunate  divisions  made  it 
impossible  to  defeat  him.  Fortunately  it  was  found  that  informalities 
attended  the  authorization  of  the  Panhandle  bonds,  and  they  were  declared 
invalid  by  the  courts;  but  the  Euef-Schmitz  comliination,  like  the  adminis- 
trations created  by  the  cunning  of  Chris  Buckley,  discovered  abundant 
pickings,  enough,  indeed,  to  enable  the  creation  of  a  machine  which  made 
the  re-election  of  the  candidate  of  the  Workingmen's  party  easily  possible. 

It  is  one  of  the  anomalies  of  nmnicipal  politics  in  San  Francisco  that 
many  of  the  men  who  have  figured  as  reformers  since  the  earthquake  of  1906 
did  not  seem  greatly  disturbed  by  the  success  of  Ruef.  They  were  not 
distrustful  enough  of  the  administration  which  he  was 
Reformers  offensively  bossing  to  refrain  from  attempting  to  procure 
Not  Be  Stirred  favors,  and  not  one  of  them  made  any  conspicuous  move  to 
Into  Action  prevent  the  re-election  of  Schmitz  in  1905,  despite  the  fact 
that  The  Chronicle  aggressively,  and  its  contemporaries  in  a 
more  or  less  perfunctory  manner,  were  almost  daily  exposing  irregularities 
and  gross  turpitude.  The  first  half  of  the  1900-1910  decade  was  a  period 
of  great  prosperity  in  San  Francisco.  Following  the  declaration  of  war 
against  Spain  in  1898,  there  was  a  great  uplift,  which  some  attributed  to 
the  growing  recognition  of  the  future  importance  of  tlie  Oriental  trade,  bat 
which,  as  the  records  will  show,  was  due  to  the  general  prosperity  of  the 
country  consequent  upon  the  temporary  (piietus  of  the  free  trade  agitation. 
This  condition  of  affairs  was  seized  upon  by  Euef  and  Schmitz,  who  tri- 
umphantly proclaimed  that  the  Labor  Union  party  had  put  San  Francisco 
on  its  feet,  and  many  were  foolish  enough  to  believe  it,  and  more  were 
acquiescent  or  impolitic  enough  to  assist  in  the  promotion  of  dissensions 
which  resulted  in  the  triumph  of  Schmitz,  who  was  a  third  time  elected, 
and  in  the  return  of  a  Board  of  Supervisors  picturesquely  described  by 
Euef  as  a  band  capable  of  "eating  the  paint  off  a  house." 

In  this  campaign  the  followers  of  Schmitz  recognized  The  Chronicle 
as  their  only  opponent.  It  had  unceasingly  pointed  out  the  infamies  of 
the  Schmitz  administration  and  had  exposed  the  character  of  the  men  Euef 
had  caused  to  be  nominated  for  Supervisoral  positions.  Its  exposures  and 
efforts  were  entirely  unavailing;  they  certainly  made  no  impression  on  the 
men  with  political  ambitions  and  with  personal  axes  to  grind ;  at  least,  they 
gave  no  positive  sign  of  disapprobation,  and  some  of  them  appeared  rather 


164  Journalism  in  California 

pleased  than  utherwi^^e  at  the  outeoine  of  the  eleetion.  The  vietors  were  not 
in  doubt  respecting  the  attitude  of  the  dill'erent  papers  of  the  city.  The 
news  of  the  triumph  of  Kuef  and  Schniitz  was  known  quite  early  and  it 

was  celebrated  by  an  impromptu  parade  in  which  many  thou- 
Claim  That  gands  participated.  While  the  long  procession  was  passing 
Promotes  the  building  on  the  corner  of  Kearny,   Geary  and   Market 

Prosperity         streets  it  kept  up  a  constant  yell  in  which  cheers  for  Schmitz 

and  Euef  and  curses  and  hooting  at  The  Chronicle  shared 
equally.  Skyrockets  and  bombs  were  used  by  tlie  paraders,  and  it  is  sup- 
posed that  the  tower  of  the  building  was  set  on  fire  by  them,  althougli  there 
is  no  certainty  as  to  its  origin.  Not  long  after  the  mob  had  passed  smoke 
was  detected  coming  from  the  lower  story  of  the  lofty  structure  which 
crowned  the  building,  and  which  contained  a  clock  that  made  it  the  princi- 
pal landmark  of  the  city.  It  was  a  blind  fire  and  water  was  liberally  used 
to  drown  it  out,  and,  after  about  half  an  hour  of  fighting,  it  was  thought 
that  result  was  accomplished.  The  forces  of  the  paper  at  work  on  the 
ninth  and  tenth  floors  were  busily  engaged  getting  the  next  morning's 
edition  ready  for  the  press  when  the  tower  suddenly  burst  into  flames  and 
drove  them  to  the  street. 

The  spectacle  attracted  half  the  city  to  the  neighborhood,  and  the  rumor 
spread  among  the  crowd  that  the  building  had  been  fired  by  the  adherents 
of    Schmitz   and   Ruef  to  avenge   themselves.     There   was   absolutely  no 

foundation  for  the  charge;  its  only  significance  consists  in 
'^f^tiP"'^^^"^  the  fact  that  it  correctly  represented  the  current  impression 
Chronicle  ^^'^^  Euef  and  Schmitz  were  bitterly  hostile  to  The  Chronicle. 

Tower  They  had  a  right  to  infer  from  that  that  such  was  the  case, 

for  day  after  day  and  night  after  night  they  were  denouncing 
the  paper,  a  custom  to  which  The  Chronicle  had  become  accustomed,  its 
practice  of  exposing  rascality  usually  inviting  the  billingsgate  and  abuse  of 
the  rascals  subjected  to  its  exposing  searchlight.  Although  the  result  of 
the  fire  was  to  disable  the  plant  for  a  couple  of  days,  there  was  no  interrup- 
tion of  publication.  The  courtesy  of  the  Examiner  rendered  it  possible  to 
do  this.  Dent  Robert,  then  at  the  editorial  helm  of  The  Chronicle's  con- 
temporary, promptly  placed  all  the  facilities  of  his  journal  at  the  command 
of  the  burned-out  newspaper.  He  went  further  and  gave  The  Chronicle 
precedence  and  insisted  that  it  should  have  the  privilege  of  being  first  on 
the  street.  Although  the  fire  made  a  big  blaze  and  completely  destroyed  the 
tower,  the  remainder  of  the  building  suffered  little  injury.  The  steel  frame 
and  cement  roof  proved  sufficiently  resistant  to  prevent  the  fire  spreading 
downward,  and  in  two  or  three  days  tlie  plant  was  again  in  condition 
for  use. 

It  was  during  the  campaign  which  resulted  in  the  third  election  of 
Schmitz  to  the  Mayoralty  that  Fairfax  Wheelan  attempted  to  bring  about 
a  reform  in  primary  methods.  His  efforts  would  have  been  attended  with 
success  had  the  community  barkened  to  the  advice  given  by  The  Chronicle. 
Mr.  Wheelan's  efforts  were  directed  to  the  exposure  of  registry  and  ballot- 
box  stuffing,  and,  in  the  course  of  the  vigorous  campaign  inaugurated  by 
him,  many  irregularities  were  exposed  by  The  Chronicle,  which  so  enraged 
Ruef  that  suits  for  libel  were  brought  against  The  Chronicle.  They  were 
never  pressed,  for  the  very  excellent  reason  that  the  paper  was  provided  with 
the  evidence  which  would  have  proved  that  the  conditions  were  infinitely 


DESTRUCTION   OF  THE   TOW  EH   OF   THE   CHRONICLE   BUILDING 
ON  THE  NIGHT  OF  NOVEMBER  5,   1905 


Ruef  and  Schmitz  165 


worse  than  it  had  represented,  and  that  the  affairs  of  the  city  were  being  as 
corruptly  administered  as  they  had  been  during  Vigilante  days  or  Avhen  the 
Democratic  boss  ruled.  Again,  as  a  matter  of  history,  and  one  not  uncon- 
nected with  the  conduct  of  the  press,  it  is  well  to  concentrate 
ExDoTes  attention  on  the  fact  tiiat  men  who  subsequently  made  a  great 

Election  display  of  activity  were  silently  acquiescent,  and  showed  no 

Abuses  signs  of  interest,  if  they,  felt  any,  in  what  was  being  done  by 

lluet  and  his  paint  eaters.  It  took  a  bigger  shaking  up  than 
a  newspaper  could  give  them  to  set  in  motion  the  forces  that  carefully 
locked  the  door  after  the  steed  was  stolen. 

It  was  during  the  second  administration  of  Schmitz  that  Colonel  Koose- 
velt,  then  President  of  the  United  States,  visited  San  Francisco.  At  that 
time  he  had  not  discovered  that  the  Republican  party  was  a  back  number, 
nor  had  he  developed  any  of  that  apprehension  concerning  the  encroach- 
ments of  so-called  "trusts,"  which  later  took  possession  of  him  so 
entirely  that  he  found  it  necessary  to  attempt  the  creation  of  a  new  party. 
On  September  30,  1902,  The  Chronicle  published  a  mono- 
Roo°s"$elt's  S^'^1'^^  ^^^  '"^'^^^  Growth  of  the  Modern  Trust  System."  It 
Visit  to  San  occupied  more  than  four  pages  of  the  paper  and  was 
Francisco  promptly    reproduced    by    the    American    Protective    Tariff 

League,  and  was  quoted  from  largely  by  the  Republican 
press.  A  copy  of  it  was  sent  to  the  Colonel,  who  caused  his  secretary  to 
write:  "The  President  was  greatly  pleased  and  interested  in  reading  the 
article,  and  feels  that  you  have  done  a  real  service  in  publishing  it."  It 
is  only  to  point  out  the  mutability  of  human  opinion  that  I  quote  from 
the  Record  Union  of  Sacramento  of  October  2,  1902,  the  following  com- 
ment on  the  article  which  pleased  President  Roosevelt.  The  writer  said: 
"One  rises  from  reading  the  four-page  brief  published  in  The  Chronicle 
of  September  ;30th  with  a  very  clear  light  as  to  the  political  intentions  of 
the  trust  combinations  in  the  United  States.  *  *  *  There  is  a  growing 
belief  among  the  men  who  hand  down  the  law  of  opinion  to  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  Republican  party  that  President  Roosevelt  is  educating  this 
Nation  in  the  belief  that  the  tariff  schedules  are  responsible  for  the  exist- 
ence of  the  trusts."  The  letter  from  the  President's  secretary,  dated 
October  6th,  stated  that  his  superior  was  pleased  with  the  article.  As  it 
was  mainly  devoted  to  showing  that  the  tariff  could  not  be  held  responsible 
for  combination  in  restraint  of  trade,  and  that  the  only  feasible  mode  of 
dealing  with  abuses,  if  they  existed,  would  be  by  internal  regulation,  it 
must  iDe  assumed  that  President  Roosevelt  at  that  time  had  not  made  u]) 
his  mind  that  protection  was  responsible  for  the  creation  of  trusts. 

It  is  of  record  that  a  small  but  influential  number  of  Republicans  were 
beginning  to  manifest  the  tendency  which  invariably  has  asserted  itself  in 
this  country  in  times  of  prosperity  to  assail  the  tariff,  but 
Apjrovif  "*'^  President  Roosevelt  could  not  have  felt  that  way  in  1902, 
of  Chronicle  ^^or  did  he  show  any  sign  in  1903  and  1901  that  he  was  not 
Articles  in  accord  with  the  stanchest  advocates  of  protectionism  in 

the  United  States.  The  Chronicle  had  that  reputation. 
M.  H.  de  Young  had  taken  a  prominent  part  in  the  national  councils  of 
the  party:  had  been  a  National  Committeeman,  and  had  served  as  delegate 
in  several  Republican  conventions.  In  the  convention  of  1904,  when 
called  upon  to  make  a  choice  between  devotion  to  the  protective  policy  and 


166  Journalism  in  California 

bimetallism,  which  his  paper  had  championed  with  William  McKinley  and 
almost  every  prominent  member  of  the  national  Eepublican  party,  he 
unhesitatingly  elected  to  stand  by  protection,  which  his  paper  had  at  all 
times  advocated.  In  the  campaign  which  followed,  The  Chronicle  printed 
a  twelve-page  presentation  of  the  protective  policy,  and,  as  was  the  case 
when  the  monograph  on  modern  trusts  appeared,  the  President  expressed 
his  satisfaction.  He  had  not  yet  seen  "a  great  white  light,"  and  no  one 
in  the  ranks  of  the  Republican  party  had  come  to  believe  that  it  was  a 
crime  to  stand  by  a  principle. 

Although  The  Chronicle,  in  common  with  the  other  papers  of  the  city, 
devoted  much  space  to  politics  during  1904,  it  did  not  do  so  to  the  exclu- 
sion of  other  subjects  touching  it  more  closely.     It  is  Avorth  recalling  that 

it  was  in  January  of  this  year  that  the  Association  for  the 
Schemes  for  Improvement  and  Adornment  of  San  Francisco  was  formed, 
tjig  The  oljject  of  its  members,  as  the  name  of  the  organization 

City  implied,  was  to  study  out  a  general  scheme  of  beautification, 

but  the  immediate  object  aimed  at  was  the  creation  of  a  civic 
center.  There  apparently  was  no  fear  in  the  minds  of  those  most  energetic 
in  promoting  the  movement  that  it  might  miscarry  because  of  the  practical 
control  of  the  Board  of  Works  by  Schmitz  and  Ruef.  There  may  have 
been  distrust,  but  it  was  not  freely  expressed.  The  spirit  of  optimism 
was  general,  and  the  city  was  booming,  although,  curiously  enough,  critics 
had  not  long  before  reproached  its  press  with  failure  to  imitate  the  example 
of  Los  Angeles,  and  charged  that  there  was  a  disposition  to  hide  the  light 
of  the  city  under  a  bushel.  It  was  urged  that  San  Franciscans  were  too 
easily  satisfied,  but  no  one  could  remain  under  that  impression  long  after 
becoming  acquainted  with  the  ambitious  projects  of  its  leading  citizens  to 
make  San  Francisco  the  most  attractive  city  in  America.  There  were 
various  ideas  respecting  the  mode  by  which  this  was  to  be  accomplished 
and  some  of  them  not  altogether  creditable.  Of  course,  that  of  the  gentle- 
men who  organized  the  "city  beautiful"  movement  was  to  put  up  attractive 
buildings,  construct  boulevards  and,  by  other  methods,  achieve  the  distinc- 
tion attained  by  the  French  capital  of  making  it  worth  a  visit.  There  was 
another  class  which  took  up  the  cry  of  "the  Paris  of  America,"  whose  ideals 
were  somewhat  different,  and,  for  a  while,  the  expression  fell  i.ito  disrepute. 
There  was,  however,  no  difference  of  opinion  concerning  the  desirability  of 
beautifying  the  city.  The  press  was  a  unit  on  that  point,  but  when  the 
outline  of  the  plans  framed  by  David  A.  Burnham,  the  well-known  architect 
of  Chicago,  and  his  corps  of  assistants  was  given,  critics  at  once  arose  who 
assailed  them  as  too  ambitious.  Even  the  warning  to  the  public  that  there 
was  no  thought  of  carrying  out  the  expansive  scheme  in  its  entirety  for 
many  years  to  come  failed  to  disarm  criticism,  and  it  is  more  than  probable 
that  the  magnitude  of  the  projected  improvements  would  have  proved  an 
obstacle  to  the  perfection  of  any  plan  for  ])eginning  them  even  if  tlie  dis- 
aster of  1906  had  not  come  to  drive  all  thought  of  them  out  of  the  public 
mind. 

Running  through  the  files  of  San  Francisco  papers  in  the  five  years 
preceding  1906,  one  notes  the  introduction  of  a  few  new  features  and  the 
accentuation  of  some  that  had  been  introduced  at  an  earlier  date.  If  the 
advertising  columns  of  the  dailies  correctly  index  the  situation,  there  was 
a  marked  increase  of  the  disposition  of  San  Franciscans  to  indulge  in 


Ruef  and  Schmitz  167 


summer  outings.     There  was  a  time  in  tlie  city  when  the  vacation  habit 
was  not  well  formed,  and  it  was  not  unusual  for  editors  at  the  proper  sea- 
son of  the  year  to  point  out  that  man,  like  a  machine,  would 
Summer  wear  out  if  he  failed  to  take  a  proper  rest  at  intervals.    When 

Editions  of  ^''is  good  advice  was  dispensed  tiie  temptation  to  abandon 
The  Chronicle  the  comforts  of  home  was  not  great.  Country  resorts  were 
few  in  number,  but  before  the  end  of  the  nineteentli  century 
they  began  to  multiply.  It  was  not  until  18D8  that  enough  of  them  sougiit 
to  press  their  claims  for  patronage  in  the  advertising  columns  of  Tlie 
Chronicle  to  accord  them  a  special  grouping.  In  that  year  they  first  made 
their  appearance  in  a  conspicuous  fashion,  and  before  the  disaster  of  1906 
the  list  was  so  long  and  the  space  occupied  in  setting  forth  their  attractions 
was  so  great  that  the  impression  might  easily  be  derived  that  everyone  in 
San  Francisco  deserted  it  during  the  summer.  Special  Quting  editions  were 
printed  containing  pages  of  alluring  descriptions  of  the  joys  of  life  on  the 
seashore,  in  the  country  and  in  the  noble  forests  within  easy  reach  of  the 
city  on  the  bay.  These  advertisements  told  a  story  of  their  own  which  was 
emphasized  by  the  time  tables  of  the  railroads  and  steamboats  which  indi- 
cated the  existence  of  hundreds  of  places  and  camps  that  had  sprung  up 
like  mushrooms  responsive  to  the  outing  demand. 

Another  conspicuous  growth  after  the  opening  of  the  century  was  the 
enlarged  attention  given  to  charitable  undertakings.  The  disposition  to 
give  freely  has  existed  in  San  Francisco  since  "the  days  of  '4!)."  It  is  said  of 
some  places  in  California  that  they  are  so  healthy  they  had 
Forwanflrf  *°  ^^  ^°"^®  killing  to  start  their  cemeteries.  The  story  smacks 
Promoting  of  climatic  exaggeration,  and  it  is  also  asserted  that  the 
Charities  project  of  starting  an  orphan  asylum  in  San  Francisco  was 

conceived  at  so  early  a  date  that  a  few  orphans  had  to  be 
imported  to  give  it  a  successful  start.  This  may  also  be  apocryphal,  but 
there  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  the  institution  once  started  it  never  lacked 
support,  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  tlie  numerous  other  eleemosynary 
establishments  called  into  existence  l)y  the  activities  of  the  charitable.  The 
newspapers  of  the  city  were  invariably  foremost  in  the  promotion  of  move- 
ments of  this  kind,  and  their  activity  in  this  regard  stands  out  in  marked 
contrast  to  the  comparative  indifference  of  older  communities.  Whatever 
the  cause,  it  is  a  fact  that  charital)le  projects  of  all  kinds  receive  more 
attention  in  the  columns  of  San  Francisco  papers  than  elsewhere,  and 
Mr.  Hearst's  paper,  the  Examiner,  has  to  its  credit  the  creation  of  a  chil- 
dren's hospital,  which  has  harbored  many  unfortunates  since  its  erection. 
It  has  proved  a  monument  to  the  enterprise  of  the  founder.  Of  less  perma- 
nent value,  but  fully  as  effective  in  relieving  distress  during  one  of  the 
souphouse  eras  produced  by  vacillating  tariff  legislation,  was  the  relief 
bureau  established  by  The  Chronicle,  which,  throughout  an  entire  winter  of 
unexampled  distress  in  San  Francisco,  provided  food  and  clothing  for  all 
necessitous  applicants.  In  long  settled  places  these  are  duties  usually 
assumed  by  the  authorities,  but  in  San  Francisco,  and  throughout  Cali- 
fornia generally,  charity  is  largely  a  matter  of  voluntary  co-operation  in 
which  the  press  plays  the  important  part  of  energetically  backing  up  the 
appeals  of  the  charitable  and  helping  them  to  carry  out  their  schemes  of 
benevolence  by  liberal  publicity. 

Women's  clubs  were  established  as  early  as  1888  in  San  Francisco,  but 


168  Journalism  in  California 

their  activities  at  first  excited  little  attention  outside  of  their  own  member- 
ship.   It  was  not  until  the  close  of  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth  century 

that  the  press  began  to  recognize  them  as  an  important  factor 
^ubs^"  ^  '"  ^^*®  development  of  the  city.     That  was  due  largely  to  the 

and  the  f^ct  that  in  the  early  stages  of  the  club  formation  movement 

Press  publicity  was  discouraged  rather  than  sought.     There  was  a 

division  of  opinion  respecting  its  desirability  which  finally 
disappeared  and  it  became  the  custom,  which  has  since  been  maintained,  of 
treating  club  doings  as  news  important  to  a  large  section  of  the  community. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  this  change  of  attitude  contributed  greatly  to  the 
advancement  of  the  cause  of  woman  sufi'rage  in  the  city,  for  the  subject, 
until  the  object  aimed  at  was  achieved,  occupied  a  large  part  of  the  atten- 
tion of  the  membership,  a  fact  made  familiar  to  the  male  part  of  the 
community  who  had  forced  upon  them  by  fre(]uent  publicity  arguments 
which  they  might  otherwise  have  successfully  evaded,  but  which  once 
acquainted  with  they  Avere  unable  to  resist  when  the  question  was  presented 
to  them  for  decision.  This  does  not  imply  that  the  women's  clubs  of  San 
Francisco  were  consciously  formed  with  any  such  object.  The  fact  is  other- 
wise. They  were  in  the  main  organized  for  social  and  cultural  purposes, 
but  when  members  developed  ditferences  they  discussed  them  and  publicity 
did  the  rest. 

Frequent  reference  has  been  made  to  the  growth  of  the  practice  of 
illustration  by  daily  papers,  and  it  has  been  shown  that  The  Chronicle  made 
intermittent  attempts  to  make  a  feature  of  pictures,  which  were  frustrated 

by  the  scarcity  of  artists  and  other  limitations.  During  the 
and*°°"^"^  bonanza  period  and  throughout  the  late  seventies.  The 
Chronicle  Chronicle   was   in    the   habit    of    publishing   on    Sundays   a 

Cartoonists        cartoon  depicting  some  phase  of  the  mining  stock  craze.     It 

was  the  only  daily  that  made  essays  in  that  direction,  the 
picture-making  field  having  been  surrendered  to  the  weeklies.  During  the 
fifties  there  were  pictorial  papers  produced,  but  they  were  modeled  on  the 
lines  of  the  Police  Gazette  and  never  enjoyed  a  considerable  popularity. 
The  Wasp,  founded  in  1870,  claims  the  distinction  of  having  been  the  first 
paper  in  America  to  print  cartoons  in  colors.  It  also  presented  its  readers 
weekly  with  flashes  of  wit  helped  out  by  the  artist's  pencil,  and  caricatures 
in  black  and  white.  After  the  introduction  of  the  chalk  process,  The 
Chronicle  manifested  a  strong  disposition  to  use  the  cartoon  as  a  political 
weapon,  and,  in  the  campaign  of  1888,  day  after  day,  the  deficiencies  of 
the  free  trader  and  the  drawbacks  of  free  trade  were  held  up  to  the  public 
gaze.  In  this  series  of  cartoons  the  name  of  the  artist  does  not  appear. 
Perhaps  he  was  not  proud  of  the  work  produced  under  the  limitations  of 
the  chalk  process,  but  he  made  some  hits  good  enough  to  be  worked  over 
and  over,  as,  for  instance,  his  "You  Dirty  Boy,"  which  was  suggested  by  a 
famous  soap  advertisement.  In  1001  the  first  colored  comic  section  was 
printed  by  The  Chronicle.  Before  its  appearance  a  couple  of  pages  Avere 
devoted  on  Sundays  to  pictures  more  or  less  humorous,  which  were  not 
designed  to  appeal  to  children.  They  had  to  depend  on  their  own  merit 
and  were  not  helped  out  by  color.  About  the  time  of  the  appearance  of 
the  comic  section  Davenport,  the  caricaturist,  joined  the  art  staff  of  The 
Chronicle.  He  was  fond  of  drawing  large  pictures  of  courtroom  scenes  and 
was  encouraged  by  Thomas  Garrett,  then  city  editor,  to  produce  sketches 


Ruef  and  Schmitz 


169 


which  took  the  better  part  of  a  page.  George  E.  Lyon,  who  had  the 
reputation  of  drawing  a  portrait  more  rapidly  and  better  than  any  other 
artist  in  the  country,  was  also  a  member  of  the  art  staff  of  The  Chronicle 
and  was  indulged  in  the  matter  of  size  as  freely  as  Davenport,  and  between 
them  they  absorbed  a  large  share  of  space  of  the  paper.  The  innovation, 
however',  was  accepted  ])y  the  public  and  to  some  extent  was  imitated  in 
other  cities.  Both  Davenport  and  Lyon  confined  themselves  to  line  draw- 
ings, which  were  reproduced  by  the  zinc  etching  process. 


IlilP" 


CHAPTER   XXI 


SAX  FRAXCISCO'S  (JKEAT  DISASTER  AND  ITS  RAPID 

RECOVERY. 

Newspaper  Warnings  That  Went  Unheeded — Prosperity  Produces  a  Careless  Atti- 
tude Toward  Municipal  Government — The  Chronicle  the  Only  Paper  Hated  by 
the  Grafters — Eeforniers  Inactive  on  the  Eve  of  the  Great  Conflagration — A 
Case  of  Purification  by  Fire — Part  Played  by  the  Press  in  the  Great  Disaster 
— Responding  to  the  Call  of  a  Self-imposed  Obligation — Preparations  to  Get 
Out  an  Extra — A  Messenger  Sent  to  Oakland  Asking  Hospitality — The  Joint 
Paper  Published  on  the  Morning  of  April  19,  1906 — It  was  a  Marvel  of  Calm 
Statement — A  Journal  That  Lived  One  Day  Only — Charles  de  Young  Receives 
His  Baptism  of  Journalistic  Fire — He  Reorganises  the  Circulation  Department 
— Paper  Temporarily  Printed  in  Oakland — The  Loss  of  The  Chronicle 's  Ref- 
erence Library — Charles  de  Young  Made  Business  Manager  of  the  Chronicle — 
Men  Who  Retained  Their  Positions  During  Long  Periods — A  Great  News- 
paper Feat  Successfully  Carried  Through  by  Charles  de  Young — Tetra^zini 
Sings  in  the  Open  Air  on  Christmas  Eve  at  the  Request  of  The  Chronicle — • 
The   Untimely   Death   of   Charles    de    Young. 


HE  tliird  election  of  Selimitz,  which  occurred  in  Xovem- 
ber,  1905,  was  not  followed  by  any  of  the  disastrous 
consequences  expected  by  those  who  were  sure  that  the 
unblushing'  declaration  of  Ruef  that  he  had  on  his 
hands  a  Board  of  Supervisors  who  were  so  hungry  for 
spoils  that  they  would  eat  the  paint  off  a  house,  would 
retard  the  advancement  of  the  city.  It  was  an  ill- 
advised  argument  frequently  employed,  but  which  did 
not  appeal  very  strongly,  that  lax  regulations  would  be  sure  to  recoil  on 
the  community  by  deterring  respectable  people  from  wishing  to  make  their 
homes  in  a  city  which  aspired  to  become  the  Paris  of  America.  Ill  advised 
because  when  the  city  forged  ahead  under  the  impulse  which  made  the 
whole  country  prosperous,  Ruef  and  his  adherents  boldly  proclaimed  that 
it  was  to  their  method  of  conducting  affairs  that  San  Francisco  owed  its 
prosperity.  And  thus  it  happened  that  vice  was  buttressed  instead  of 
being  dislodged,  and  the  worst  practices  of  an  administration  which  was 
in  the  business  of  governing  for  all  there  was  in  it  were  resumed  without 
being  challenged  by  the  community.  They  did  not  pass  unnoticed,  how- 
ever, for  the  press,  or  that  part  of  it  at  least  which  was  not  too  timid  to 
antagonize  the  representatives  of  the  Labor  Union  party  for  fear  of  losing 
patronage,  kept  on  pointing  out  evasions  of  ordinances,  and  exposing  ras- 
cality, but  without  acconiplisliing  much  good,  for,  as  is  the  manner  of 
prosperous  people,  who  do  not  desire  to  bo  bothered,  the  stories  were  dis- 
missed by  them  as  newspaper  lies.  -^ 

170 


Purification  by  Fire  171 

The  newspapers  were  sharing  in  the  general  prosperity.  Eeal  estate 
was  booming  and  building  operations  were  extending  rapidly.  The  pro- 
prietor of  The  Chronicle  was  making  an  addition  to  his  building  on  the 
•  1  '  "^o^^^^^  of  Market,  Geary  and  Kearny  streets,  which  was  well 
Seventeen-'^  ^  ^advanced  toward  completion  when  the  fire  in  the  tower 
Story  occurred.     It  was  seventeen  stories  high,  and  Mr.  de  Young 

Building  liad  contemplated  bringing  the  original  structure  to  the  same 

height,  a  design  which  Avas  frustrated  by  the  passage  of  an 
ordinance  by  Euef's  facile  Board  of  Supervisors  fixing  a  maximum  of 
twelve  stories.  The  object  of  the  limitation,  it  was  openly  boasted,  was  to 
prevent  the  carrying  out  of  the  design  in  its  entirety.  It  was  merely 
another  mode  of  advertising  the  fact  to  the  world  that  The  Chronicle  was 
the  only  paper  obnoxious  to  the  paint  eaters.  Other  owners  of  property 
were  not  interfered  with ;  they  made  improvements,  and,  if  subsequent 
developments  are  to  be  relied  upon,  they  paid  handsomely  for  the  privilege. 
Ruef  and  Schmitz  were  reaping  a  harvest  from  the  in(liffer<^ncG  of  tlie 
public.  If  anyone  contemphited  an  enterprise  requiring  public  interven- 
tion, he  went  to  Euef,  and,  if  satisfactory  arrangements  were  made  with 
him,  he  caused  his  "paint  eaters"  to  pass  the  necessary  ordinances,  or,  if  it 
was  a  simple  case  of  assurance  against  the  menace  of  interference,  that  was 
also  fixed.  Everything  and  everyl)ody  who  wanted  anything  clone  paid  toll 
and  the  competition  to  secure  the  favor  of  the  attorney  of  the  Mayor,  v/hose 
word  was  law  for  the  paint  eaters,  was  most  keen. 

This  was  the  condition  of  affairs  on  the  eve  of  the  eventful  April  18, 
1906.     If  any  of  those  who  later  took  so  conspicuous  a  share  in  the  work 
of  cleansing  the  Augean  stables  of  the  municipality  contemplated  interfer- 
ence with  the  practices  notoriously  and  offensively  conspicu- 
A  Case  ^^g  ^^iqj  kept  their  intentions  to  themselves.    As  a  matter  of 

Purification       ^^^t,  the  disposition  to  interfere  did  not  exist.     The  over- 
by  Fire  whelming   victory   of   Schmitz   in   the   preceding   November 

was  apparently  accepted  as  an  intimation  that  the  community 
was  well  satisfied  with  Messrs.  Ruef  and  Schmitz,  and  those  who  wished  to 
embark  in  enterprises  decided  that  the  easiest  course  was  to  work  along  the 
line  of  least  resistance.  It  required  a  convulsion  of  nature  to  bring  about 
a  change  and  it  came  on  the  morning  of  April  18,  1006,  and  was  emphasized 
by  the  disastrous  conflagration  which  wiped  out  two-thirds  of  the  city.  It 
was  a  case  of  purification  by  fire.  ^Yhen  the  smoke  cleared  away,  the  com- 
munity, or  those  of  that  part  of  it  which  remained  to  bear  the  brunt  of 
resurrection,  clearly  saw  things  which  they  had  formerly  refused  to  look  at, 
or,  at  least,  had  refrained  from  taking  cognizance  of,  if  they  saw  them. 

In  the  trying  hours  of  the  conflagration  which  followed  the  disaster  the 
newspapers  of  San  Francisco  played  a  conspicuous  part,  one  which  has  not 
been  fittingly  recognized,  because  the  American  people  have  become  habitu- 
ated to  expecting  the  press  to  do  its  d^^ty  under  all  circum- 
b^'th^p''^^*^  stances,  no  matter  how  trying.  The  organizing  ability  dis- 
in  the  Great  played  by  the  men  who  took  the  helm  when  the  city  govern- 
Disaster  ment  broke  down  was  admirable.    Their  courage  was  sulilime, 

but  their  efforts  would  have  been  hampered  and  retarded  had 
not  the  morning  papers  obeyed  the  unwritten  law  of  the  higher  journalism 
to  continue  publication  without  interruption.  It  was  the  first  duty  of  the 
press  to  give  the  news  of  the  tremendous  disaster,  and  the  next  obligation 


172  Journalism  in  California 

imposed  on  it  was  that  of  imparting  courage  and  hope  to  the  scattered 
members  of  the  community,  who,  witliout  this  inspiration,  would  have  given 
up  in  despair.  Had  there  been  no  press  to  record  the  heroic  utterances  of 
the  members  of  the  Committee  of  Fifty  and  to  applaud  and  assist  in  the 
dissemination  of  their  plans  their  etTorts  must  have  been  in  vain,  or  at  best 
no  quicker  in  their  fruition  than  those  which  attended  the  attempts  at 
rehabilitation  which  followed  the  Messinian  disaster. 

What  the  press  does  is  so  easily  accepted  as  a  matter  of  course  that 
the  public  scarcely  interests  itself  in  its  doings,  but  it  deserves  to  know 
something  of  the  efficiency  of  an  organization  whose  usefulness  even  an 

earthquake  was  unable  to  interrupt,  and  which,  when  every 
p  ®^^  industry  was  paralyzed,  had  to  put  forth  more  than  its  eus- 

Self-Imposed  tomary  energy  to  maintain  the  standard  set  for  itself.  Few 
Obligation         outside  of  the  profession  realize  the  importance  attached  by 

its  members  to  performing  the  self-imposed  obligation  of  fur- 
nishing the  news,  and  there  are  many  who  may  regard  as  an  empty  boast 
the  assertion  that  the  force  of  a  newspaper  is  more  ready  to  respond  to  the 
call  of  duty  than  the  soldier,  whose  response  is  often  exacted  by  discipline. 
Those  who  observed  the  unwearied  efforts  made  by  newspaper  men  during 
several  hours  on  that  eventful  18th  of  April  to  prevent  a  break  in  the  con- 
tinuity of  the  publication  of  the  journals  to  which  they  belonged  will  agree 
that  the  devotion  exhibited  by  them  was  marvelous.  Neglecting  everything 
else,  they  confined  their  endeavors  to  the  accomplishment  of  one  purpose, 
which  was  not  abandoned  until  all  the  means  of  effecting  it  were  utterly 
destroyed. 

The  disaster  occurred  at  5:18  o'clock.  The  editions  of  all  the  morning 
papers  had  been  printed  and  were  in  the  hands  of  the  carriers  for  distribu- 
tion.   What  was  done  with  the  issues  of  that  morning  has  never  been  clearly 

ascertained.  Copies  of  any  of  the  San  Francisco  papers  of 
Getting  April  18,  1906,  are  far  more  rare  than  those  of  the  succeed- 

Print^an  i"g  ^^J^  giving  an  account  of  the  disaster.     The  carriers,  in 

Extra  their  panic,  must  have  thrown  them  away,  for  it  has  been 

found  nearly  impossible  to  procure  specimens.  The  delivery 
had  not  begun  in  the  outlying  districts,  which  escaped  the  fire,  or  more 
would  have  been  preserved.  When  the  first  members  of  the  editorial  staff 
of  The  Chronicle  reached  the  office  it  was  not  yet  6  o'clock.  The  force  in 
the  pressroom  apparently  had  no  idea  of  the  extent  of  the  trouble  and  was 
busily  engaged  cleaning  up  the  machines  after  the  morning  run.  A  hasty 
survey  of  the  condition  of  the  l)uilding  was  made  by  the  managing  editor, 
and  the  inspection  satisfied  him  that  there  would  be  no  obstacle  in  the  way 
of  getting  out  an  extra.  The  foreman  of  the  pressroom  was  notified  that 
the  attempt  would  be  made  as  soon  as  material  for  an  edition  <?ould  be 
prepared.  In  the  meantime,  the  city  editor,  Ernest  S.  Simpson,  who  lived 
in  a  remote  part  of  the  city,  had  arrived  and  was  soon  joined  by  a  number 
of  reporters  and  telegraph  editors.  The  force  was  promptly  set  to  work 
gathering  information  respecting  the  extent  of  the  damage,  and  the  man- 
aging editor  composed  himself  sufficiently  to  write  an  editorial  which 
breathed  the  spirit  of  optimism  in  every  'line.  Soon  the  news  gatherers 
began  streaming  in  with  their  reports  and  started  preparing  their  copy. 
L.  C.  Simpson,  now  conducting  the  Sacramento  Union,  undertook  the 
task  of  "making  up."    It  was  an  arduous  one,  for  it  involved  the  necessity 


Purification  by  Fire  173 


of  pleading  with  the  printers  to  stick  to  their  job  when  fresh  tremors  dis- 
turbed them,  and  the  lieat  of  the  conflagration  which  was  raging  across 
Market  street  became  nearly  unbearable. 

The  elfort  to  get  out  an  extra  was  not  abandoned  until  the  engineer 
discovered  that  tbe  supply  of  water  had  been  cut  off  and  that  it  would  be 
impossible  to  turn  over  the  presses.     The  gas  used  in  heating  the  linotype 

metal  had  also  given  out  and  the  machinery  of  the  office  was 
^.  ,     at  a  standstilL     The  Examiner  and  the  Call  were  not  in  a 

jjQpg  position  even  to  think  of  making  an  effort  to  publish  an  extra. 

The  buiklings  in  which  their  machinery  was  installed  were 

among  the  earliest  to  be  attacked  by  the  flames.  While  The 
Chronicle  staff  was  still  struggling  with  the  extra  that  was  never  "printed 
word  was  sent  by  M.  II.  de  Young  to  the  Examiner  and  Call  that  The 
Chronicle  would  be  glad  to  share  its  facilities  with  them.  There  Avas  no 
fear  at  the  time  that  the  flames  would  leap  across  Market  street.  The 
reporters  had  brought  accounts  of  the  failure  of  the  engines  to  obtain 
water,  but  it  was  not  realized  until  a  little  later  that  the  supply  was  prac- 
tically cut  off  and  that  there  was  small  hope  of  preventing  the  entire  de- 
struction of  the  business  section  of  the  city.  When  this  conclusion  was 
reached  the  managing  editors  of  the  three  morning  papers  dispatched  a 
messenger  to  W.  S.  Dargie,  proprietor  of  the  Oakland  Tribune,  informing 
him  that  they  would  in  all  probability  have  to  ask  his  assistance  in  getting 
out  a  paper.  It  never  occurred  to  them  for  a  moment  that  there  could 
be  any  suspension  of  publication  so  long  as  the  mechanical  facilities  for 
getting  out  an  edition  could  bo  obtained,  and  Mr.  Dargie's  office  was  well 
provided  in  that  regard. 

The  preferring  of  the  request  to  Mr.  Dargie  was  merely  a  formality. 
He  placed  his  office  at  the  disposal  of  the  fire-evicted  journals,  and,  on  the 
morning  of  the   19th  of  April,  the  "Examiner-Call-Chronicle"   appeared 

with  four  pages  devoted  wholly  to  describing  the  disaster. 
J^®  .  ..  .  Considering  the  condition  of  the  public  mind  and  the  jyre- 
Qf  posterous    rumors    in    circulation,    the   publication   must   be 

Rumors  regarded  as  an  extraordinary  model  of  sobriety  of  statement. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  during  the  first  day  of  the  con- 
flagration nothing  seemed  incredible  to  the  wrought-up  populace.  It  was 
generally  believed  that  something  in  the  nature  of  a  universal  cataclysm 
had  occurred.  One  story  told  of  the  submergence  of  New  York  and  another 
gave  some  details  of  tbe  entire  destruction  of  Chicago.  Eumors  of  awful 
happenings  and  horrible  atrocities  were  current,  but  none  of  them  was 
given  currency  in  the  joint  paper.  It  was  a  presentation  without  exaggera- 
tion of  one  of  the  greatest  calamities  of  modern  times ;  even  in  the  matter 
of  estimating  losses,  a  moderation  was  displayed  which  is  not  always  at- 
tained under  less  exciting  circumstances.  When  this  emergency  sheet  was 
distributed  on  tlie  morning  of  the  19th  it  was  received  with  an  eagerness 
which  testified  the  appreciation  in  which  the  newspaper  is  held  even  by 
those  who,  when  not  seeking  the  comfort  and  assurance  it  gives,  think 
lightly  of  the  part  it  plays  in  the  scheme  of  modern  life.  This  journal  of 
a  day  was  distinguished  by  other  peculiarities  than  that  of  being  the  joint 
production  of  three  rival  papers.  It  contained  no  advertisements  whatever, 
and  was  distributed  gratuitously  to  the  unexpectant  people  of  San  Fran- 
cisco, who  did  not  dream  of  the  possibility  of  such  a  publication  appearing. 


174  Journalism  in  California 

aiid,  iinally,  il  lual  the  Jistinetiuii  uf  aeliioviiig  an  extraordinary  circulation 
in  facsimile  through  the  presses  of  the  Trihune  printing  successive  editions, 
which  were  eagerly  bought  up  by  souvenir  hunters. 

The  lamented  Charles  de  Young,  son  of  M.  11.  de  Young,  the  proprietor 
of  The  Chronicle,  received  his  journalistic  baptism  of  fire  on  the  morning 
of  the   l!)th.     In  accordance  with  the  plans  of  his  father,  Avho  proposed 

having  him  acquaint  himself  with  the  workings  of  every  de- 
Youne^s  B^t)  P^^rtment  of  the  paper,  Charles  had  been  doing  duty  in  the 
tism  of  Jour-  publication  office,  where  he  was  installed  as  a  clerk  immedi- 
nalistic  Fire     ately  after  being  graduated  from  Harvard.     On  the  morning 

of  the  17th,  he  was  "Charlie"  to  the  young  men  who  were 
his  associates  in  the  office;  on  the  19th  he  suddenly  took  command,  and 
thenceforth  he  was  the  leading  spirit  in  the  business  office,  whose  head  he 
was  destined  to  become.  It  was  to  his  energetic  efforts  that  the  prompt 
restoration  of  order  in  the  publication  department  was  due.  It  was  he  who, 
on  the  morning  of  the  19th,  was  the  first  to  appear  in  the  part  of  the  town 
not  reached  by  the  flames,  in  an  automobile  containing  bundles  of  the  joint 
paper,  which  were  thrown  out  by  him  to  the  boys,  who  reaped  a  harvest  of 
small  coins  from  eager  buyers;  and  it  was  he  who  effectively  organized  the 
distributing  system  maintained  during  the  j)eriod  while  the  mechanical 
Avork  of  The  Chronicle  was  performed  on  the  other  side  of  the  bay.  On  the 
day  of  the  issuance  of  the  "Examiner-Call-Chronicle"  an  arrangement  was 
made  with  the  Oakland  Herald,  an  evening  paper  with  an  excellent  plant, 
and  on  the  morning  of  April  20tli  The  Chronicle  appeared  with  its  familiar 
heading.  The  proximity  of  the  Herald  to  the  track  of  the  Key  Route  made 
it  practicable  to  deliver  the  paper  in  the  city  at  a  very  early  hour,  and 
during  the  entire  period  that  the  printing  was  done  on  the  other  side  of 
the  bay,  Charles  de  Young  gave  his  personal  attention  to  the  important 
w^ork  of  securing  early  and  effective  distribution  by  the  carriers. 

The  Examiner  promptly  concluded  an  arrangement  with  the  Oakland 
Tribune,  but  it  was  some  days  before  the  Call  made  its  appearance.  The 
evening  papers  practically  suspended  publication  until  they  were  provided 

with  machinery  from  near-by  points  and  the  East.  The  three 
TemtJorar'lv  morning  papers  established  publication  offices  on  Fillmore 
Printed  in  street,  The  Chronicle  pioneering  the  movement  by  securing 
Oakland  the  lease  of  a  store  on  the  Saturday  succeeding  the  fire.     The 

selection  was  due  to  the  desire  to  be  close  to  the  hall  in  which 
the  Committee  of  Fifty  held  its  meetings,  and  to  the  perception  of  the  fact 
that  Fillmore  street  was  destined  for  a  time  to  be  the  most  important  thor- 
oughfare in  the  city.  Tiie  editorial  rooms  of  the  paper  were  located  in  a 
building  opposite  the  publication  office,  and  here  the  editorial  and  local 
copy  was  prepared  and  sent  to  Oakland.  George  IT.  Fitch,  the  night  editor 
of  The  Chronicle,  took  his  force  with  him  to  Oakland  and  had  at  his  com- 
mand two  or  three  artists  with  whose  assistance  he  soon  managed  to  get 
out  as  many  pictures  as  the  restricted  plant  of  the  Herald  would  permit. 
It  was  some  days  before  San  Franciscans  took  enough  interest  in  the  out- 
side world  to  demand  much  telegraphic  news,  but  the  appetite  was  soon 
restored.  During  the  first  few  weeks  after  the  disaster  the  morning  papers 
printed  an  extraordinary  number  of  advertisements,  whose  object  was  the 
bringing  together  of  scattered  friends,  relatives  and  people  whose  business 
relations  were  interrupted  by  the  conflagration. 


The  Call=Cliromcle=Examiner 


SAN  FRANCISCO.  THURSDAY.  APRIL  19,  l«(M. 


EARTHQUAKE    AND    FIRE: 
SAN  FRANCISCO  IN  RUINS 


I   AM  nn  'totmi  q 


A  oootTJU.  rov  rte  contor  Ind  cxftk  ov  Mb  of  T^  r^>Cb 


MO  HOPE  LEFT 
FOR  SAFETY  OF 
AMY  BUILOIMGt 


BLOW  BUILDINES  WHOLE  CITY 
UP  TO  nils  ABLAZE 


IMIAYOR  COMFERS 
WITH  MILITARY 
AMD  CITIZENS 


TITLE  PAGE  OF  THE  JOINT  PAPER  ISSUED  BY  SAN  FRANCISCO'S 

THREE  MORNING  DAILIES   ON  THE   DAY  AFTER 

THE  DISASTER  OF  1906 


i 


Purification  by  Fire  175 

The  plants  of  all  the  newspapers  were  totally  destroyed  by  the  fire 
and  had  to  be  replaced  but  before  that  could  be  accomplished  places  had 
to  be  prepared  for  them.     The  Chronicle  was  in  better  case  than  the  other 

morning  papers  as  it  was  enabled  to  install  presses  in  the  base- 
of  ^t*he^*^°"  ment  of  the  seventeen-story  annex,  which  was  approaching 
Chronicle  completion  when  the  disaster  occurred.     The  western   part 

Building  of  the  building  on  the  corner  of  Market,  Geary  and  Kearny 

had  suffered  from  the  precipitation  of  the  battery  of  lino- 
types on  the  top  floor  to  the  basement.  This  was  caused  by  the  burning  of 
the  false  roof  which  was  constructed  after  the  tower  fire  in  November,  1905, 
and  maintained  wdiile  two  stories  were  being  added.  The  fire  from  the  roof 
was  communicated  to  a  large  quantity  of  drawings  stored  in  a  gallery,  which 
also  contained  about  five  or  six  tons  of  zinc  etchings.  The  floor  of  this 
gallery  was  of  wood,  and,  when  it  caught  fire,  the  zinc  was  dumped  on  the 
top  of  the  linotypes  and  the  shock  and  the  added  weight  caused  the  entire 
mass  to  break  through  the  terra  cotta  and  cement  floors  of  story  after  story 
until  it  reached  the  basement,  burying  the  three  perfecting  presses  under 
the  debris  and  carrying  with  it  in  its  descent  the  valuable  library  of  the 
paper  which  represented  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century's  accumulation 
of  reference  matter.  It  was  the  one  irreparable  loss.  The  machinery,  which 
represented  an  investment  of  several  hundred  thousand  dollars,  could  be 
replaced,  but  the  records  and  scrapbooks  were  irreplacable.  Although  the 
western  end  of  the  building  had  to  be  restored,  that  part  facing  Market 
street  was  easily  put  in  condition  for  use.  A  press,  procured  from  the  Los 
Angeles  Times,  was  set  up  in  the  basement,  a  battery  of  linotypes  was 
installed  on  the  second  floor  of  the  annex  and  a  large  room  on  the  mez- 
zanine floor  of  the  old  building,  accessible  from  Market  street,  was  devoted 
to  the  use  of  the  editorial  staff,  and  The  Chronicle  was  able  to  announce  to 
the  public  that  it  was  back  in  its  old  home. 

There  were  some  who  were  disposed  to  regard  the  early  removal  of  The 
Chronicle  to  the  ash  heap  as  premature,  and  not  a  few,  strange  as  it  may 
now  seem,  had  reached  the  hasty  conclusion  that  the  business  center  had 

permanently  shifted  itself  to  Van  Ness  avenue,  which  speedily 
^    .  .  took  on  the  air  of  a  watering  place  thoroughfare  in  which 

Which  Had       uiucli  bunting  and  plate  glass  take  the  place  of  substantial 
Consequences     structures.     But   M.   H.   de  Young  was  convinced  that  the 

causes  which  made  Kearny,  Geary  and  Market  streets  the 
heart  of  the  city  before  the  fire  still  existed,  and  that  his  example  would 
soon  be  followed  by  others.  The  movement  downtown,  however,  was  not 
precipitate  and  it  is  recalled  by  an  employe  of  the  business  department  of 
the  paper  that  the  appearance  of  a  woman  on  Market  street  two  or  three 
days  after  the  force  took  possession  of  one  of  the  small  stores  on  the  Market 
street  side  of  the  building  created  quite  a  commotion,  the  clerks  wondering 
what  she  was  doing  down  in  the  ash  heap.  This  was  in  the  closing  days 
of  July,  1906,  and  it  was  several  months  before  the  workers  of  The 
Chronicle  got  rid  of  the  feeling  of  isolation  which  familiarity  with  the 
neighborhood  of  Lotta's  fountain  after  nightfall  created.  The  spot,  now 
the  busiest  in  the  city,  w^as  practically  deserted  when  the  forces  engaged  in 
wrecking  buildings  had  finished  their  labors  for  the  day,  and  the  street  car 
lines,  although  they  maintained  a  service,  might  have  abandoned  it  without 
greatly  impairing  their  profits. 


176  Journalism  in  California 

While  what  was  nominally  the  main  office  of  The  Chronicle  was  estab- 
lished in  the  i)resent  building  before  the  opening  days  of  the  June  following 
the  earthquake,  the  branch,  opened  on  the  21st  of  April  at  1801  Fillmore 

street,  Avas  for  a  long  time  the  busiest.  Advertisers  found  the 
The  First  latter  the  most  convenient,  and  it  w'as  not  until  the  banks. 

Start  Up  insurance  companies  and  the  principal  commercial  establish- 

Downtown         ments,  one  by  one,  found  their  way  back  to  the  localities  in 

which  they  had  done  business  before  the  conflagration  that 
the  publication  office  of  The  Chronicle  assumed  its  old-time  bustling  appear- 
ance. Apart  from  that,  however,"  the  readers  and  other  patrons  of  the 
paper,  in  less  than  six  months  after  the  disastrous  April  ISth,  could  see 
little  in  it  to  remind  them  of  the  experience  through  which  it  had  passed. 
It  was  a  strenuous  time  for  the  proprietor,  who  was  compelled  to  devote 
himself  untiringly  to  the  work  of  rehabilitating  the  mechanical  end  of  his 
journal  and  simultaneously  drive  the  reconstruction  of  the  seventeen-story 
annex  and  that  of  preparing  to  restore  the  Market  street  structure.  Accord- 
ing to  the  records,  M.  H.  de  Young's  order  to  rebuild  was  the  first  given 
after  the  fire.  Before  the  end  of  July  daily  editions  of  fourteen  pages  were 
sent  out  and  forty-eight  pages  were  printed  on  Sundays.  In  November  the 
daily  issues  were  of  sixteen  pages,  and  the  Sunday  edition  was  increased 
to  sixty-two  pages.  On  December  22,  1907,  an  annual  containing  eighty 
pages  was  issued,  the  largest  paper  ever  printed  in  San  Francisco  up  to 
that  date.  The  Examiner  and  Call  displayed  less  alacrity  in  getting  back 
into  their  old  quarters.  The  former  of  the  two  continued  to  be  printed  in 
a  temporary  construction  near  the  water  front  until  the  new  Hearst  build- 
ing on  the  corner  of  Third  and  Market  streets  w^as  completed,  a  wooden 
shack  on  the  corner  of  those  thoroughfares  serving  as  a  downtown  business 
office  until  the  erection  of  its  present  home.  The  Examiner  and  Call,  like 
The  Chronicle,  had  established  offices  on  Fillmore  street,  and  they  remained 
for  a  long  time  their  principal  places  of  business. 

Charles  de  Young  was  promoted  to  the  position  of  business  manager 
in  the  busy  days  of  rehabilitation.  His  father  had  not  contemplated  so 
rapid  an  advancement,  but  during  the  trying  period  of  lUOG  he  revised 

an  earlier  view  and  concluded  to  lessen  his  own  labors  by 
Business  making  his  son  assume  some  responsibilities.     A  vacancy  oc- 

of^T^^e^^  curred  in  the  management  of  the  business  department,  and 

Chronicle  Charles  was  placed  in  charge.     He  was  the  fourth  to  fill  that 

res])onsib]e  position.  From  the  time  of  the  launching  of  The 
Chronicle  until  the  death  of  his  brother  in  1880,  M.  II.  de  Young  had  given 
his  personal  attention  to  the  management  of  tlie  details  of  the  business  and 
had  not  appointed  a  manager.  The  first  to  fill  the  position  after  that  date 
was  JosGi)h  B.  Eliot,  who  had  many  years'  experience  in  the  office.  He 
remained  in  charge  of  the  publication  department  for  many  years  and  was 
succeeded  by  W.  P.  Leech  and  the  latter  by  C.  H.  Hornick.  Charles  de 
Young  filled  Ihe  position  of  business  manager  up  to  within  a  few  weeks  of 
his  untimely  death,  which  occurred  on  Sepiember  17,  1013.  The  growing 
business  of  the  paper  suggested  the  necessity  of  a  general  supervision,  and 
Charles  was  designated  as  publisher,  a  title  which  had  scarcely  become 
familiar  to  the  public  before  he  passed  away.  When  Charles  de  Young 
became  publisher,  W.  H.  B.  Fowler,  the  present  business  manager,  was 
appointed.     Mr.  Fowler  began  his  career  in  the  Chronicle  offic^^as  a  boy 


nr.      t       PRESENT    HOME    OP    THE    SAN    FRANCISCO    CHRONICLE 
'constructed  by  M.  H    de  Young-  after  the  disaster  of  1906.     The  first  building 
erected  in  the  downtown  district  after  the  great  fire. 


Purification  by  Fire  177 

and  filled  several  roles  before  assuming  his  responsible  position.  His  con- 
nection with  the  paper  was  interrupted  only  long  enough  to  take  a  Stanford 
collegiate  course.  After  graduation  from  that  institution  he  served  a  while 
as  telegraph  news  editor,  but  his  aptitude  for  business  attracted  Mr.  de 
Young's  attention,  and  he  was  put  in  charge  of  the  automobile  advertise- 
ments, which  rapidly  assumed  large  proportions  under  his  management. 
He  remained  manager  of  this  department  until  he  assumed  the  business 
managership.  It  is  worth  mentioning  as  a  characteristic  of  the  proprietor 
of  The  Chronicle  that  he  has  the  faculty  of  retaining  employes  during  long 
periods.  In  the  fifty  years  of  its  career,  The  Chronicle  has  had  only  three 
cashiers :  B.  A.  Wardell,  James  G.  Chesley  and  W.  D.  Burlingame,  who 
now  fills  that  responsible  position. 

Mention  has  been  made  in  a  preceding  chapter  of  the  increased  atten- 
tion paid  to  sports.    A  column  or  so  of  varied  paragraphs  published  once  a 
week  and  furnished  by  a  reporter  familiar  with  all  sorts  of  diversions  met 
all  requirements  until  near  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
^^    ,  fury.     After  that  time  the  amount  of  space  devoted  to  the 

of  Interest  subject  began  to  be  reckoned  by  pages,  requiring  several  re- 
in Sports  ])orters  to  produce  it,  all  of  whom  had  to  be  specialists  in  their 
particular  line.  This  necessitated  the  organization  of  a  de- 
partment presided  over  by  a  sporting  editor  who  directed  and  supervised. 
Benny  Benjamin  was  the  first  sporting  editor  of  The  Chronicle  in  charge 
of  a  force  of  men.  He  had  an  international  reputation  as  a  turf  reporter, 
and  his  accounts  of  prize  fights  were  considered  unsurpassed  by  the  critics, 
and  their  number  was  legion.  Harry  B.  Smith,  at  present  in  charge  of  the 
department,  also  enjoys  the  reputation  of  being  an  authority,  his  specialties 
being  baseljall  and  the  ring.  There  are  some  who  profess  to  regard  with 
amazement  the  extraordinary  attention  paid  to  sports  by  American  news- 
papers, but  their  surprise  would  suffer  diminution  if  they  had  any  concep- 
tion of  the  demand  for  such  intelligence.  It  is  possible  that  lectures  or  ser- 
mons would  have  a  greater  educational  value  than  an  account  of  a  prize 
fight,  if  the  patrons  of  daily  papers  could  be  induced  to  read  them,  but,  un- 
fortunately, they  cannot  be  persuaded  to  do  so,  and  insist  on  neglecting 
the  papers  which  refuse  to  print  what  they  desire.  Hence  the  great  pre- 
ponderance of  sporting  over  matter  of  a  more  solid  character;  and,  by  the 
way,  there  would  be  much  less  of  the  latter  printed  than  there  is  at  present 
if  the  people  who  interest  themselves  in  sports  threw  upon  the  serious  the 
entire  burden  of  supporting  newspapers. 

The  preceding  remarks  are  by  way  of  explanation  of  a  newspaper  feat 
of  The  Chronicle  successfully  carried  througli  by  Charles  de  Young,  whose 
activities  when  he  was  business  manager,  as  was  befitting  in  one  who  ex- 
pected to  succeed  his  father  as  head  of  The  Chronicle,  were 
^  not  confined  to  any  department  of  the  paper.    In  1910,  when 

Newspaper  ^''^  approaching  Johnson-Jeffries  fight,  which  was  to  take 
Feat  place  at  Eeno,  attracted  almost  as  much  attention  as  a  Euro- 

pean war,  Mr.  de  Young  organized  and  personally  took  charge 
of  a  corps  of  sixteen  reporters,  correspondents  and  photographers  sent  to 
Reno  to  report  the  "great"  event  for  The  Chronicle.  The  force  consisted  of 
Ben  Benjamin,  Harry  Smith,  Waldemar  Young,  C.  A.  Home,  Charles  Eem- 
ington,  B.  D.  Johnson,  Helen  Dare,  Jack  Densham,  Leroy  Ripley,  George 
Stanson,  Harold  Fitch  and  F.  A.  Purner  of  the  Chronicle  staff  and  Jack 


178  Journalism  in  California 

London,  Ivex  Beach  and  Thomas  E.  Flynn,  who  acted  as  special  corre?])ond- 
ents.  A  special  Avas  engaged  to  hriiig  the  photographs  taken  at  the  ring- 
side, which  were  developed  while  the  train  was  thuii(lering  on  its  way  to  tlie 
city.  The  fight  terminated  at  3  P.  M.  in  the  defeat  of  Jetfries,  and  at  10 
P.  M.  the  photographer,  accompanied  hy  Charles  Eemington,  who  was  de- 
tailed to  descrihe  the  flight  of  the  special,  arrived  in  the  office.  Meanwhile, 
the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Company  was  transmitting  over  its  wires 
over  40,000  Avords  of  descri])tion,  which  appeared  in  The  Chronicle  on  the 
succeeding  morning,  accompanied  hy  sixteen  half-tones  of  the  rounds,  in- 
cluding the  final  knockout.  Mr.  de  Young  had  so  thoroughly  systematized 
the  work  at  the  Reno  end  that  the  vast  numher  of  AVords,  representing 
scores  of  different  filings,  reached  the  office  in  perfect  order,  j\Ir.  Fitch,  the 
night  editor,  reporting  to  the  managing  editor  that  in  his  long  experience 
he  had  never  received  a  story  hy  telegraph  more  easily  handled.  To  round 
out  the  account  of  this  newspaper  exploit,  it  should  be  added  that  the  paper 
Avas  out  on  sharp  time  on  the  morning  of  the  5th  of  July,  and  that  at  11 
o'clock  on  the  night  of  the  4th  a  special  edition  was  dispatched  to  Reno, 
Avhich  was  the  first  to  reach  the  croAvds  Avho  had  Avitnessed  the  fight. 

Charles  de  Young  had  to  his  credit  another  ncAvspaper  exploit  which 
attracted  as  much  attention  to  San  Francisco  as  it  did  to  the  paper.  The 
suggestion  being  made  that  the  prima , donna  Tetrazzini  might  be  induced 
to  sing  in  public,  he  succeeded  in  persuading  her  to  do  so  on 
C^mferT^in^  Christmas  eve  of  11)10.  The  concert  occurred  in  front  of  the 
Front  of  The  ni^in  entrance  of  the  Chronicle  building,  the  diva  using  the 
Chronicle  proprietor's    office    as    her    retiring   room    for    the    occasion. 

Never  Avas  there  a  greater  or  more  enthusiastic  throng  as- 
sembled to  hear  a  singer.  The  number  of  listeners  Avas  estimated  to  exceed 
a  hundred  thousand.  JMarkct  street  for  Iavo  blocks  Avas  densely  packed,  and 
Third,  Geary  and  Kearny  streets  contained  thousands  avIio,  although  they 
could  not  see  the  singer's  face,  were  content  to  hear  her  voice.  The  evening 
was  delightfully  pleasant,  and  the  male  part  of  the  audience  complimented 
the  prima  donna,  who  insisted  on  adopting  San  Francisco  as  her  home,  by 
removing  their  head  coverings.  Flashlight  pictures  of  the  immense  crowd 
were  taken  and  sent  to  the  leading  pictorial  publications  of  the  United 
States  and  Europe,  many  of  Avliich  reproduced  the  same.  An  amusing  com- 
mentary on  municipal  pettiness  is  contained  in  the  inscription  on  Lotta's 
fountain,  Avhich  falsely  states  that  the  diva  sang  at  that  spot,  but  the  fact 
remains  that  she  sang  in  front  of  the  Chronicle  office  at  the  request  of  The 
Chronicle.  The  tablet  on  the  fountain  Avas  expressly  prepared  to  suppress 
the  truth,  but  it  has  only  serA-ed  to  elevate  the  occurrence  to  the  dignity  of 
an  historical  event  and  to  call  the  attention  of  future  generations  to  the 
varied  forms  assumed  by  ncAvspaper  rivalry  in  the  first  decade  of  the 
twentieth  century. 

The  young  man  Avhose  imagiiuition  and  activity  Avere  responsible  for 
this  and  other  Chronicle  performances,  took  the  same  lively  interest  in 
public  affairs  as  his  father,  and  Avas  foremost  in  the  promotion  of  ceh'l)ra- 
tions  and  pageants.  In  tlie  Portola  Fiesta  in  190!)  and  in  simihar  demon- 
strations he  was  full  of  suggestions  and  his  assistance  and  advice  were 
always  sought.  ITe  was  a  director  of  the  Panama-Pacific  International 
Exposition,  as  was  also  his  father,  Avho  Avas  one  of  the  sul)scribers  of  $25,000 
at  the  big   meeting  in  the  Merchants'   Exchange  Avhen  the   project  was 


Purification  by  Fire 


179 


Untimely 
Death  of 
Charles 
de  Young 


launched.  Charles  was  a  tireless  worker  in  and  out  of  the  office,  and  en- 
joyed an  extraordinary  i)opularity  among  his  fellow  workers  on  the  paper. 
When  his  untimely  death,  which  occurred  on  September  17,  1913,  was 
announced,  the  community  was  profoundly  shocked.  lie  was 
carried  ofi  by  typhoid  fever,  contracted,  it  is  supposed,  by- 
drinking  water  which  had  been  standing  in  a  neglected  pipe. 
The  press  of  the  entire  country  united  in  paying  a  tribute 
to  his  marked  journalistic  ability,  and  in  extending  sympathy 
to  his  father,  whose  dream  of  a  lifetime  had  been  that  his  only  son  would 
take  up  the  work  when  he  laid  it  down.  The  death  of  Charles  de  Young 
followed  very  closely  on  the  consummation  of  a  transaction  in  which  he  had 
taken  the  liveliest  interest,  and  which  he  expected  would  achieve  great 
results  for  the  paper.  His  satisfaction  over  this  accomplishment  of  his 
father  was  the  subject  of  his  last  conversation  with  the  writer,  who  had 
followed  his  career  with  the  liveliest  interest  from  the  day  of  his  birth  to 
the  hour  of  his  untimely  passing  away. 


.A 


m 


CHAPTER    XXII 


THE  LATEST  DEVELOPMENTS  IN  THE  FIELD  OF 
JOUENALISM. 

Purchase  of  the  San  rrancisco  Call  by  M.  H.  de  Young — Eetirement  From  the 
Field  of  a  Survivor  From  Pioneer  Days — Introduction  of  Wireless  Telegraphy 
— Increased  Complexity  of  Newspapering — An  Album  of  Portraits  of  the 
Working  Force  of  The  Chronicle — Kemarkable  Expansion  of  the  Midwinter 
Exposition  Memorial  Museum — A  Product  of  the  Journal  That  Does  Things — 
The  Chioniele's  Christmas  Ship — Over  a  Quarter  of  a  Million  Articles  Sent 
to  the  Little  Ones  of  Warring  Europe — Charles  de  Young's  Efforts  to  Brighten 
the  Lives  of  Unfortunates — Rescuing  the  Careless  From  the  Clutches  of  Loan 
Sharks — The  Chronicle's  Japanese  and  Pan-American  Editions — Imminence  of 
Another  Chronicle   Skyscraper. 


HEN  the  latest  census  of  newspaper  publications  and 
periodicals  of  all  kinds  in  California  was  taken  in  1913 
the  total  of  the  enumeration  was  818.  This  embraced 
161  dailies,  4  triweeklies,  31  semiweeklies,  502  weeklies, 
2  fortnightlies,  9  semimonthlies,  101  monthlies,  5  bi- 
monthlies and  1  quarterly.  Of  this  number,  1G6  were 
published  in  San  Francisco,  there  being  nineteen  dailies, 
fifty  weeklies,  one  semiweekly,  fifty  monthlies,  four 
semimonthlies,  one  bimonthly  and  one  fortnightly.  Of  the  dailies,  nine 
were  published  in  the  English  language,  four  in  Chinese,  three  in  Japanese, 
one  in  German  and  two  in  Italian.  Only  three  of  the  entire  list  of  dailies, 
the  Bulletin,  the  German  Demokrat  and  the  Journal  of  Commerce,  are 
survivals  from  the  fifties.  Of  the  weeklies,  the  News  Letter  and  the  Chris- 
tian Advoc-ate  date  their  birth  back  to  pioneer  days.  Only  one  paper,  that 
which  today  celebrates  its  fiftieth  anniversary,  enjoys  the  distinction  of 
liaving  remained  uninterruptedly  in  one  ownership  from  the  date  of  its 
foundation.  All  the  other  journals  established  a  half  century  or  more 
ago  have  undergone  many  clianges  of  proprietorship,  and  some  of  them 
have  been  subjected  to  such  transformations  that  little  more  than  the  name 
originally  bestowed  upon  them  links  their  history  with  the  past.  The  Ex- 
aminer, for  instance,  started  its  career  as  an  evening  paper  about  the  same 
time  that  The  Chronicle  made  its  first  appearance,  and  was  changed  into  a 
morning  paper  several  years  later. 

The  Call,  whose  advent  in  the  journalistic  field  preceded  that  of  The 
Chronicle  by  several  years,  maintained  its  existence  for  more  than  half  a 
century.  It  was  founded,  as  related  in  an  earlier  chapter,  ])y  a  small  coterie 
of  printers,  who  operated  it  for  a  short  period  only.  The  paper  was  subse- 
quently purchased  by  Claus  Spreckels  and  passed  into  his  possession  on 

180 


The  Call  Suspends  181 


the  1st  of  January,  1895.     During  the  first  two  years  after  its  acquisition 
hy  him  it  was  under  tlie  management  of  Charles  M.  Shortridge.     On  the 
113th  of  August,  1897,  tlie  Call  passed  into  the  possession  of 
M.  H.  de  John   D.    Spreckels,   in  whose  ownership   it  remained  until 

Purclmses  the    September   1,   1913,  when   it  was   purchased   by   M.   H.   de 
Call  Young,  and  its  publication  permanently  suspended.     The  ex- 

tinction of  the  Call  created  a  national  journalistic  sensation, 
and  was  hailed  with  expressions  of  satisfaction  by  advertisers,  who  re- 
garded the  conversion  of  San  Francisco  into  a  two-morning-daily  city  as 
tending  greatly  to  simplify  their  relations  with  the  newspapers  and  the 
public  generally.  At  the  time  of  the  acquisition  of  the  Call  by  Mr.  de 
Young  it  possessed  a  splendid  equipment,  the  major  part  of  which  was 
absorbed  into  The  Chronicle's  plant. 

The  purchase  of  the  Call  was  the  subject  of  extended  comment  by  the 
editors  of   Pacific   Coast  papers  familiar  with  the  early  rivalries  of   the 
extinguished    journal   and    The    Chronicle.      Many   of   them    recalled   the 
energetic  efi'orts  of  the  de  Young  boys  to  break  into  the  San 
Building  Francisco  newspaper  field,  and  one  claimed  to  have  predicted 

Qi-eat  ^^'6    outcome   in    1879.      The    prophecy,    however,   made   no 

Newspaper  deep  impression,  and  when  the  purchase  was  made  the  sur- 
prise was  general.  During  the  period  while  the  Call  was  in 
the  possession  of  John  D.  Spreckels  it  was  conducted  as  a  thoroughly  up-to- 
date  newspaper  and  was  a  vigorous  competitor  for  public  favor.  Had  the 
fact  been  otherwise,  the  passing  of  a  journal  that  had  rounded  out  an  ex- 
istence of  nearly  sixty  years  would  have  attracted  less  attention.  The 
mortality  list  of  San  Francisco  newspapers  was  a  long  one,  but  in  most 
instances  the  community  was  not  disturbed  when  a  publication  dropped 
out  of  line.  The  circumstances  attending  the  disappearance  of  the  Call, 
however,  were  of  such  a  character  that  few  newspapers  throughout  the 
length  and  breadth  of  the  land  refrained  from  comment,  most  of  it  taking 
the  form  of  approval  of  w'hat  was  considered  an  important  tendency  in 
modern  journalism,  namely,  to  build  up  and  make  a  few  great  newspapers 
rather  than  multiply  their  number  at  the  expense  of  efficiency. 

Much  space  has  been  devoted  by  the  press  of  San  Francisco  and  by 
observing  visitors,  to  the  marvelous  energy  displayed  by  the  community  in 
the  work  of  rehabilitation  since  the  disaster  of  190G.  The  rebuilding  of  a 
city  is  something  that  forces  itself  on  the  attention  of  the  least 
Introduction  observant.  When  skyscrapers  and  less  lofty  structures  are 
Wireless  rising  in  every  direction  they  are  recognized  by  all  as  im- 

Telegraphy  ])rovements,  but  the  changes  made  by  newspapers,  which  are 
usually  in  the  direction  of  greater  efficiency  in  the  presenta- 
tion of  news  and  increased  attractiveness,  are  less  likely  to  be  noticed,  be- 
cause the  reading  public  has  become  accustomed  to  accepting  journalistic 
innovations  as  a  matter  of  course.  Some  of  these  latter,  however,  are 
worthy  recording  in  a  sketch  of  journalism.  Perhaps  the  most  important 
of  these  is  the  extended  use  of  wireless  telegraphy,  which  became  of  such 
practical  importance  in  the  work  of  news  gathering  about  1910  that  it  is 
now  regarded  as  an  indispensable  part  of  the  machinery  for  collecting  in- 
telligence. It  has  begun  to  share  with  the  ocean  cables  and  land  wires  the 
duty  of  swiftly  conveying  to  the  editor  accounts  of  occurrences  on  land 
and  sea,  and  sometimes  it  has  the  mournful  monopoly  of  the  recital  of 


182  Journalism  in  California 

disasters  on  the  deep  wliieli  would  never  be  heard  of  if  Marconi's  wonder- 
ful discovery  had^not  been  made. 

Tlie  results  of  the  employment  of  wireless  communication  may  pass 
unnoticed  by  the  average  reader,  who  is  not  so  much  interested  in  the  source 
of  tiie  news,  or  how  it  was  obtained,  as  he  is  in  the  news  itself,  but  the 

investigator  who  takes  the  trouble  to  compare  an  issue  of  a 
Marvelous  morning  paper  of  some  five  or  six  years  ago  with  one  of  the 
Made  present  day  will  discover  that  there  are  features  whose  daily 

Commonplace    presentation   makes   them   seem    commonplace   which    really 

indicate  an  advancement  more  marvelous  than  any  recorded 
during  the  nineteenth  century.  In  the  most  prosaic  fashion  the  leading 
journals  of  the  country  daily  print  items  whose  publication  would  have 
been  deemed  impossible  by  a  past  generation.  The  owner  of  a  vessel  at 
sea  learns  from  this  unostentatious  column  as  he  peruses  his  morning 
paper  that  the  craft  in  which  he  has  invested  a  fortune  is  safe  in  some 
exactly  indicated  part  of  a  vast  ocean;  a  busy  father,  whose  wife  and  daugh- 
ter are  traveling,  gathers  from  the  brief  wireless  message  that  the  ship 
on  which  they  are  sailing  homeward  will  reach  port  on  time;  the  merchant 
awaiting  the  arrival  of  a  cargo  is  informed  that  he  is  not  likely  to  be  dis- 
appointed. Sometimes  the  news  brought  is  tragic,  and  then  it  finds  a  place 
aniongthe  more  startling  intelligence;  but  Avhether  the  information  brought 
by  wireless  is  that  of  a  disaster,  or  merely  a  record  of  the  location  of  a 
vessel  at  sea,  the  method  of  bringing  it  will  always  seem  more  wonderful 
than  that  employed  when  transmitted  through  a  cable  or  a  land  wire. 

Another  innovation  more  particularly  confined  to  the  two  San  Fran- 
cisco morning  papers  is  that  of  issuing  successive  editions  to  meet  the  wants 
of  different  localities  in  the  vast  area  served  by  them.    Before  the  disaster  of 

1906  it  rarely  happened  that  more  than  one  edition  was  issued 
Making  ^^^  ^  morning  paper;  at  present  as  many  as  five  are  sent  out 

of  Many  every  morning.    The  earliest  of  these  appears  on  the  streets  at 

Editions  11   p.   m.,   and  meets  the  requirements   of   San   Francisco's 

large  night  population.  It  is  followed  at  intervals  by  other 
editions,  which  are  dispatched  by  special  train  or  other  conveyances  to  vari- 
ous localities,  all  of  whose  particular  needs  are  recognized  and  provided  for 
by  the  publication  of  items  of  local  interest.  The  innovation  of  successive 
editions  was  compelled  by  the  rapid  growth  of  population  since  1906  in 
the  area  contributory  to  San  Francisco.  Before  tliat  date  the  night  editor, 
unless  some  accident  causing  an  interruption  to  communication  occurred, 
awaited  the  signal  "good  night"  from  the  Associated  Press  and  telegraphic 
correspondents.  The  welcome  good  night  never  comes  now.  The  various 
editions  are  sent  to  press  at  a  prescribed  minute,  and  if  there  is  a  failure  in 
that  regard  the  circulation  department,  through  the  business  manager,  is 
sure  to  ask  for  an  explanation. 

As  a  result  of  the  issuance  of  many  editions,  the  work  of  the  night 
editor  is  made  much  more  arduous  than  in  former  times,  when  the  paper 
nearly  made  itself  up.  It  is  no  longer  possible,  as  it  once  was,  closely  to 
estimate  the  quantity  of  matter  to  be  set  by  the  printers,  and  it  frequently 
happens  that  the  editors  upon  Avhom  devolve  the  duty  of  selecting  what 
shall  appear  in  the  paper  are  obliged  to  discard  much  that  has  been  pre- 
pared for  publication.  On  occasion  enough  is  thrown  aside  to  fill  a  good- 
sized  sheet.    As  pointed  out  in  an  earlier  chapter,  the  scarcity  of  news,  or 


The  Call  Suspends  183 


rather  the  facilities  for  assemhling  it,  necessitated  efforts  to  fill  up.     The 
problem  in  the  modern  newspaper  office  is  entirely  different.    It  is  to  find  a 

place  for  the  "stuff"  which  comes  to  it  from  hundreds  of 
''f^the  sources  and  that  which  is  diligently  gathered  by  the  large  staffs 

j^ight  of  reporters  and  special  writers  employed  on  all  the  leading 

Editor  city   papers.      Instead   of    being   concerned   about   obtaining 

matter  to  print,  the  heads  of  the  various  departments  are 
called  upon  to  observe  the  closest  watch  over  the  copy  prepared  by  or  sub- 
mitted to  them  in  order  to  keep  within  the  space  allotted  them,  otherwise 
the  paper  would  be  flooded  with  relatively  inconsequential  matter.  This 
requires  the  exercise  of  discrimination  on  the  part  of  every  editor  en- 
trusted with  the  preparation  of  copy  for  the  printer,  but  even  that  fails  of 
its  purpose,  for  when  the  matter  is  all  up  in  type  there  are  usually  many 
columns  more  than  can  be  accommodated  in  the  various  editions  and  the 
editor  is  called  upon  to  make  a  swift  decision  as  to  what  shall  go  and  what 
shall  be  left  out. 

The  making  of  successive  editions  greatly  increases  the  work  in  all  the 
mechanical  departments  of  the  great  city  dailies.  In  the  infancy  and  grow- 
ing period  of  American  city  journalism,  the  making  of  a  daily  paper  was  a 

simple  affair.  No  special  training  was  required  for  those 
M  "^h  nerv  engaged  in  its  preparation.  Given  a  few  competent  printers 
of  a,  and  a  press  which  would  print  a  few  thousand  copies  of  a 

Great  Daily      four-page  sheet  in  four  or  five  liours  and  any  man  capable  of 

writing  a  swinging  editorial  and  putting  together  such  scraps 
of  information  as  came  to  hand  could  easily  turn  the  trick.  The  production 
of  a  modern  daily  is  something  entirely  different.  There  is  nothing  more 
complex  than  the  highly  organized  machinery  of  a  great  daily  journal. 
Every  part  must  w^ork  in  perfect  harmony  to  produce  results.  The  pos- 
sibility of  accident  is  never  considered.  Every  day  takes  care  of  itself. 
Prevision  of  the  highest  order  cannot  prepare  for  the  morrow.  In  every 
other  occupation  those  in  charge  can  foresee  what  they  will  be  called  upon 
to  perform  during  the  ensuing  twenty-four  hours,  but  the  editor  cannot 
tell  what  the  day  may  bring  forth.  It  may  promise  no  more  than  a  hum- 
drum experience  requiring  the  exercise  of  nothing  else  than  ordinary  dili- 
gence, and  may  end  in  the  application  of  high-pressure  energy  helped  out 
by  ingenuity  and  the  eager  co-operation  of  everyone  in  the  establishment. 
But  whether  the  day  is  dull  or  crowded  with  excitement,  everything  must 
go  like  clockwork,  otherwise  the  paper  would  not  be  out  on  time  for  the 
toiler  to  read  on  the  way  to  his  daily  occupation,  or  the  people  of  leisure  to 
peruse  at  their  breakfast  tables. 

Few  people  outside  the  profession  have  any  comprehension  of  the 
enormous  toil  and  the  great  number  of  persons  required  to  produce  the 
paper  which  they  read  with  such  comfort  and  satisfaction  in  the  morning. 

The  comparatively  insignificant  price  at  which  it  is  sold  has  a 
l^rce^"f  a  fendency  to  cause  those  who  enjoy  the  benefits  of  the  mar- 
Big  velous  cheapness  of  newspaper  intelligence  to  underrate  the 
Daily  efforts  that  must  be  put  forth  to  enable  publishers  to  make  a 

daily  presentation  of  the  news  of  the  world.  Many  will  be 
surprised  when  told  that  thousands  of  active  minds  and  willing  hands  co- 
operate to  produce  that  which  the  reader  of  the  daily  paper  accepts  as  a 
matter  of  course.     Not  Ions  since  the  attaches  of  The  Chronicle  signalized 


184  Journalism  in  California 

an  occasion  by  presenting  M.  H.  de  Young  with  a  handsomely  gotten  up 
album  containing  the  photograph  of  every  employe  of  the  paper  whose  duties 
were  performed  within  the  precincts  of  the  Chronicle  building.  The  por- 
traits numbered  exactly  258,  made  up  as  follows:  Editorial  staff,  ninety- 
four;  business  office  and  circulation  and  advertising  departments,  fifty-four; 
compositors  and  linotype  operators,  sixty-three;  photo  engraving  depart- 
ment, six;  stereotypers  and  pressmen,  twenty-nine;  engineers,  electricians, 
etc.,  twelve.  In  addition  to  this  force,  the  paper  maintains  telegraphic 
correspondents  in  every  place  of  importance  on  the  Pacific  Coast  and  rep- 
resentatives in  all  the  news  gathering  centers  of  the  East  and  the 
world. 

How  this  large  number  is  emj^loyed  it  would  take  a  sizable  volume  to 
tell.  There  are  some  in  the  editorial  department  whose  productions  occupy 
much  space,  and  others  who  work  just  as  energetically  whose  efforts  hardly 

show  up  at  all.  There  is  an  impression  outside  of  newspaper 
Effort  to  offices  that  modern  journalism  exhibits  recklessness  of  state- 

Get  mcnt,  but  if  the  average  man  or  woman  would  display  a  tithe 

the  Facts  of  the  energy  exerted  by  newspapers  to  get  at  the  exact  facts 

this  would  be  a  more  truthful  world  than  it  is.  A  large 
part  of  the  work  of  the  local  staff  of  a  groat  city  journal  is  the  ascertainment 
of  the  truth  or  falsity  of  stories  circulated  by  individuals.  If  the  men  whose 
business  it  is  to  write  had  nothing  to  do  but  to  fill  space  the  force  of  such  a 
paper  as  The  Chronicle  could  easily  provide  matter  for  thrice  as  many 
pages  as  are  daily  printed.  But,  odd  as  it  may  seem  to  the  outsider,  re- 
porters are  not  selected  because  they  can  express  themselves  with  facility. 
That  is  a  qualification  eminently  desirable,  but  it  is  not  rated  near  so  highly 
as  the  ability  to  get  at  the  bottom  of  things.  The  two  qualities  are  combined 
in  the  most  successful  reporter,  but  the  city  editor  who  understands  what 
the  public  desires  considers  the  man  who  after  carefully  investigating  a 
rumor  reports  that  it  has  no  foundation  more  favorably  than  he  does  the 
one  who  thinks  he  can  perform  the  feat  which  was  once  thought  impossible 
of  making  bricks  without  straw. 

In  the  preceding  chapters  attempts  w^ere  made  to  determine  the  status 
of  reporting,  and  some  evidence  was  presented  which  pointed  to  a  con- 
tinued improvement  in  every  branch  of  the  art.     The  esteem  in  which  the 

work  of  certain  reporters  of  earlier  days  is  held  by  oldtimers  is 
g?^®  no  trustworthy  basis  for  comparison.     Not  infrequently  the 

of  claim  is  put  forward  that  the  haste  of  turning  out  a  modern 

Reporting  paper  militates   against   the  production  of  good   reportorial 

Avork,  but  the  files  do  not  bear  out  the  assumption,  and  the 
fact  that  the  local  rooms  of  the  big  city  dailies  have  proved  the  halfway 
house  or  the  preparatory  school  for  many  Avho  have  found  their  way  into 
the  higher  walks  of  literature  abundantly  supports  the  assertion  that  the 
modern  newspaper,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  very  well  written.  Eecognition  of 
the  good  work  of  the  present  does  not  constitute  a  disparagement  of  the 
past;  it  merely  tends  to  discourage  a  sort  of  criticism  destitute  of  value 
because  it  ignores  the  conditions  responsible  for  slips,  and  shuts  its  eyes  to 
the  merit  of  performances  which  would  be  impossil)le  to  most  of  the  fault 
finders  who  pick  the  flaws  and  pass  over  the  good  things. 

If  there  was  a  greater  disposition  to  hunt  for  the  latter  the  critics  would 
find  abundant  opportunity  to  frame  their  criticism  in  appreciative  terms. 


THANKSGIVING   DAY   AT  THIO   REI.TKF   H<  >:«]•:   AX1>   THJ': 

CHILDREN'S  HOSPITAL 

The  custom  of  entertaining  the   children   was   inaugurated  by  Charles   de  Young 

and  has  been  kept  up  since  his  death  by  his  father,  M.  H.  de  Young. 


j 


The  Call  Suspends  185 


There  is  still  plenty  of  "the  journalism  that  does  things,"  and  the  kind 
that  perpetuates  things  that  -were  well  done.     The  story  of  the  Midwinter 
Exposition   has   already  been  told,  but  the   success  of  that 
Memorial  achievement  of  M.  H.  de  Young  by  no  means  ended  with  the 

Museum  accomplishment  of  the  immediate  object  aimed  at  by  its  pro- 

ponent. After  the  closing  of  the  Exposition,  Mr.  de  Young, 
who  always  had  a  fad  for  collecting  curiosities  and  antiquities, 
succeeded  in  getting  the  consent  of  the  Park  Commissioners  to  leave  the 
Art  Building  in  the  Park  and  permit  him  to  create  a  museum.  This  museum 
was  named  the  Golden  Gate  Park  ]\Iemorial  Museum  to  recall  the  Mid- 
winter Exposition.  During  the  past  twenty  years,  M.  H.  de  Young  has 
devoted  all  his  spare  time  during  his  travels  throughout  Europe  and  the 
Orient  in  purchasing  curiosities,  armor  and  other  valuable  exhibits,  in  the 
beginning  using  the  fund  left  after  the  closing  of  the  Exposition  and  sub- 
sequently using  his  own  money.  At  least  eight-tenths  of  the  articles  at 
present  in  the  museum,  of  which  there  are  over  250,000,  have  been 
acquired  through  the  efforts  of  Mr.  de  Young.  Mr.  de  Young  has  main- 
tained a  lively  interest  in  the  Museum  since  1894,  and  has  ceaselessly  worked 
to  promote  its  growth.  It  has  since  become  the  most  popular  public  institu- 
tion in  San  Francisco  and  has  outgrown  its  original  home.  An  enumera- 
tion of  the  treasures  in  the  various  departments  discloses  that  it  has  long 
since  passed  the  nucleus  stage,  and  is  now  a  full-fledged  museum,  inviting 
contributions  and  recognition. 

At  this  writing  the  pioneer  room  has  a  collection  of  50,000  articles 
connected  with  and  illustrating  the  early  history  of  the  State.     In  the  mis- 
sion room  there  are  over  a  hundred  articles,  all  relics  of  the  California  mis- 
sions.    In  the  department  devoted  to  ceramics  there  are  8000 
Growth  pieces,  including  royal  Meissen  Dresden,  Majolica,  etc.     The 

Valuable  chief   feature    of   this   room    is   a   cloisonne   vase   valued   at 

Collection  $8000,  presented  by  M.  H.  de  Young.     In  the  room  devoted 

to  numismatics  there  are  2000  coins,  many  of  them  ancient 
and  rare.  There  are  2000  pieces  of  jewelry,  including  jades,  watches, 
miniatures,  etc.,  some  of  them  very  valuable  because  of  their  rarity.  In 
the  Napoleonic  room  there  are  more  than  one  hundred  articles,  among 
them  a  throne  chair  and  the  field  glasses  of  the  Emperor.  There  is  a  Dutch 
room  containing  fifty  or  more  articles  of  typical  Dutch  furnishings  of  vari- 
ous periods.  One  of  the  most  interesting  departments  is  that  illustrating 
the  Colonial  period  of  the  United  States,  and  there  is  an  Egyptian  room, 
containing  over  500  reminders  of  that  ancient  civilization.  The  Xorth 
American  room  contains  4000  articles;  there  are  fully  600  ecclesiastical 
exhibits,  such  as  Bibles,  vestments,  etc. ;  a  tapestry  collection  embracing 
more  than  a  thousand  pieces  of  French,  Spanish,  Italian  and  German  work- 
manship, and,  in  the  Oriental  department,  there  are  3000  objects.  There 
is  a  natural  history  department,  containing  fully  40,000  articles  pertaining 
to  every  branch  of  this  science.  The  value  of  these  collections  is  attested 
by  the  great  interest  exhibited  by  visitors  and  by  the  fact  that  the  library 
pertaining  to  California  history,  which  already  numbers  7000  volumes,  and 
the  exhibits  are  closely  studied  by  an  increasing  number  of  students.  The 
increasing  popularity  of  the  ]\Iuseum  is  a  tribute  to  the  sagacity  of  its  prac- 
tical founder,  M.  H.  de  Young,  and  is  as  much  a  memorial  of  "the  jour- 
nalism that  does  things"  as  the  success  of  the  Midwinter  Exposition,  which 
it  commemorates. 


186  Journalism  in  California 

The  journalism  that  does  things  was  given  a  practical  illustration  by 
Charles  de  Young,  the  son  of  M.  H.,  after  his  assumption  of  the  duties  of 
business  manager.  It  consisted  in  a  sympathetic  recognition  of  the  fact  that 
the  duty  of  society  does  not  end  with  providing  homes  for 
Uie\iives"^  unfortunates.  Several  weeks  prior  to  Thanksgiving  day  in 
of  the  Noveml)er,    1911,    Mr.    de    Young    conceived    the    idea    of 

Unfortunate  brightening  the  cheerless  lives  of  the  sick  and  crippled  little 
ones  confined  in  the  Children's  Hospital,  and  that  of  the  aged 
inmates  of  the  Relief  Home.  With  his  accustomed  earnestness  and  energy, 
he  organized  an  entertainment  which  appealed  greatly  to  those  for  whom  it 
was  contrived.  A  troop  of  soldiers,  the  Nationals,  the  oldest  military  organ- 
ization in  tiie  State,  in  their  bright  zouave  uniforms,  and  performers  from 
the  various  vaudeville  establishments  of  the  city,  were  taken  early  in  the 
morning,  in  sightseeing  automobiles,  to  tbe  hospital  and  the  home.  Tlie 
soldiers  were  put  through  their  evolutions  and  the  performers  did  their  best 
stunts  and  there  was  plenty  of  music  to  enliven  the  affair.  The  unwonted 
treat  was  so  greatly  appreciated  by  those  for  whom  it  was  designed  that  it 
was  repeated  in  the  ensuing  year,  and  since  the  death  of  Charles  de  Young 
the  custom  has  been  perpetuated  by  The  Chronicle  to  honor  his 
memory. 

The  most  recent  of  the   activities  of   The   Chronicle  was  that  whicli 
resulted  in  the  collection  of  fully  a  quarter  of  a  million  of  toys,  articles  of 
wearing  apparel,  etc.,  in  San  Francisco  and  the  surrounding  country,  for 
the  little  ones  in  the  warring  countries  of  Europe.    The  con- 
^^®.  ception  of  the  happy  idea  of  sending  a  shipload  of  Christmas 

Ship  of  The      gifts  to  the  region  in  which  the  conflict  was  raging  met  with 
Chronicle  an  instant  sympathetic  and  zealous  response.     The  announce- 

ment was  made  by  The  Chronicle  on  the  morning  of  Septem- 
ber 26,  1914,  that  a  ship  laden  with  things  that  would  give  joy  to  the  sor- 
rowing youngsters  whose  fathers  were  at  the  front  or  who  had  already  suf- 
fered the  soldier's  cruel  fate,  would  be  dispatched  to  Europe.  The  prom])- 
titude  with  which  the  readers  of  The  Chronicle  responded  to  the  call  sur- 
prised even  those  familiar  with  the  readiness  of  San  Franciscans  to  put 
their  hands  in  their  pockets  when  an  appeal  is  made  for  children.  Before 
the  ink  was  dry  on  the  paper  in  which  the  announcement  was  made  gifts 
began  to  pour  into  the  office.  Little  children  brought  toys  and  the  grown 
ups  contributed  luoney  with  which  to  buy  articles  of  wearing  apparel,  and 
many  brought  things  in  their  own  hands. 

Tbe  contril)utions  poured  in  so  freely  that  a  depot  for  their  reception 
and  storage  had  to  be  provided,  and  M.  II.  de  Young  placed  at  the  disposal 
of  the  committee  which  he  caused  to  be  organized,  a  large  store  in  the 
Chronicle  building.     Here  a  corps  of  volunteers  consisting  of 
^^^*^,  well-known  society  ladies,  assisted  by  employes  of  The  Chron- 

Children  of  ^^^^^  received  and  arranged  the  gifts  for  shipment  by  the 
Belligerents  United  States  collier  Jason,  which  was  tendered  by  the  Secre- 
tary of  the  Navy,  to  transport  the  contributions  to  Europe. 
During  the  month  devoted  to  the  collection  of  gifts  it  is  estimated  that 
over  a  quarter  of  a  million  articles  were  brought  or  sent  to  the  depot, 
and,  when  the  Christmas  Ship  campaign  came  to  a  close  on  October  25th, 
there  were  450  big  packing  cases,  filled  to  the  bursting  point,  ready  for 
shipment.    The  Southern  Pacific  Railroad  undertook  the  transportation  of 


f 


The  Call  Suspends  187 

the  gifts  to  the  East.  The  procession  of  the  eleven  hig  trucks  from  tlie 
Chronicle  office  to  the  freight  station  on  Berry  street  was  viewed  by  tliou- 
sands  of  people.  But  the  generosity  of  contributors  did  not  cease  with  this 
consignment.  Gifts  continued  to  come  to  the  office,  and  a  day  later  fifty- 
four  more  -cases  were  sent  after  the  original  lot.  The  Jason  carried  them 
safely  over  the  water  to  Europe,  and  their  distribution  in  the  countries  to 
which  they  were  consigned  drew  forth  expressions  of  gratitude  and  appre- 
ciation from  highest  to  lowest. 

The  press  sometimes  succeeds  in  remedying  evils  of  long  standing,  and 
which  have  occupied  a  largo  share  of  public  attention,  with  a  rapidity  which 
surprises  those  who  have  labored  to  mitigate  them.     In  all  cities  there  is  a 

class  of  improvidents  and  unfortunates  whose  carelessness  or 
Sharks  and  necessities  drive  them  into  the  toils  of  what  are  familiarly 
Their  called  "loan  sharks."     San  Francisco  had  its  share  of  the 

Victims  latter,  and,  if  the  records  of  the  courts  can  be  depended  upon, 

they  are  a  particularly  voracious  breed.  In  the  early  part 
of  the  year  1912  The  Chronicle  inaugurated  a  crusade  against  these 
creatures,  which  had  for  its  outcome  the  establishment  in  San  Francisco  of 
a  "Eemedial  Loan  xVssociation."  On  February  20,  1912,  the  Welfare  Com- 
mittee of  the  Board  of  Supervisors  was  waited  upon  by  a  number  of  prom- 
inent citizens,  who  proposed  a  plan  for  the  abatement  of  the  evil,  which 
was  subsequently  adopted.  On  the  24th  of  March  articles  of  incorporation 
and  a  constitution  for  the  San  Francisco  Eemedial  Loan  Association  were 
drawn  up  and  favorably  acted  upon  by  a  committee  which  met  in  the 
Chamber  of  Commerce.  It  provided  for  the  creation  of  a  board  of  fifteen 
directors,  and  authorized  the  making  of  small, loans  on  chattel  mortgages. 
On  December  6th  of  the  same  year  the  new  institution  opened  its  doors,  and 
in  the  course  of  the  first  month's  business  the  association  loaned  $13,601 
to  1295.  Thus  there  was  accomplished  in  less  than  a  year,  through  the 
agency  of  The  Chronicle,  an  object  which  earnest  men  and  women  had  been 
aiming  to  achieve  for  more  than  a  decade.  The  Eemedial  Loan  Association 
is  now  a  fixture,  and  the  community  is  satisfied  that  it  is  doing  excellent 
work  and  making  it  more  and  more  difficult  for  rapacious  money  lenders 
to  extort  money  from  needy  persons  who  may  be  frightened  into  paying 
extortionate  rates  for  small  accommodations. 

The  "journalism  that  does  things,"  while  commanding  popular  applause, 
and  often  entailing  the  expenditure  of  a  great  deal  of  tliought  and  energy, 
is  after  all  only  the  spectacular  side  of  newspapering.    The  greatest  accom- 

plishment  of  journalism  is  the  ability  displayed  by  those 
Growth  directing  the  affairs  of  great  journals  to  constantly  enlarge 

of  The  their  spheres  of  usefulness,  and  to  increase  the  interest  of  their 

Chronicle  patrons.    The  hallmark  of  successful  journalism  is  innovation 

and  improvement.  In  the  retrospect  each  year  must  present 
an  improvement  over  that  of  the  preceding  year.  That  has  conspicuously 
been  the  case  with  The  Chronicle  since  its  foundation  fifty  years  ago  by 
the  brothers,  Charles  and  M.  H.  de  Young.  The  survivor  of  the  two  is 
able  to  look  back  half  a  century  and  see  in  the  files  of  The  Chronicle  the 
result  of  his  care  and  arduous  labors.  The  fact  that  there  was  no  slip  back 
during  the  interval  is  eloquently  testified  by  the  evidences  of  constant 
growth.  The  product  of  his  paper  was  good  fifty  years  ago;  it  was  better 
ten  years  later.  '  Every  decade  has  added  to  its  attractiveness  and  value. 


188  Journalism  in  California 

Improvement  has  been  made  when  improvement  no  longer  seemed  possible, 
and  that  is  likely  to  be  the  future  record  of  the  paper. 

In  no  way  can  the  vast  strides  of  journalism  in  California,  or,  for  that 
matter,  the  whole  United  States,  be  more  accurately  measured  than  by  a 
comparison  of  the  special  papers  issued  by  a  great  i)ublication.  Special 
.  publications  may  be  regarded  as  the  milestones  in  the  develop- 
Pan-American  ^^^^^^  ^f  journalism.  They  clearly  mark  its  progress.  During 
Japanese  recent  years  there  have  not  been  many  noteworthy  changes 

Editions  in  the  regular  daily  issues;  the  number  of  pages  printed  is 

about  the  same  as  when  the  introduction  of  the  perfecting 
press  caused  a  reduction  in  size  and  an  increase  in  the  number,  but  enter- 
prise has  been  exhibited  in  the  field  which  The  Chronicle  entered  when  the 
brothers  de  Young  were  still  working  together.  Their  example  has  been 
followed  by  many  papers  and  exhaustive  accounts  of  noteworthy  occurrences 
are  no  longer  uncommon.  Big  annuals  are  printed  by  the  leading  journals 
of  the  great  American  cities,  and  none  now  neglects  to  signalize  great  hap- 
penings Ijy  exhaustive  accounts  which  deal  with  the  subject  treated  from 
every  possible  angle  calculated  to  interest  or  inform  the  reader.  But  it 
remained  for  The  Chronicle  to  introduce  still  another  innovation,  namely 
the  issuance  of  editions  dealing  with  the  commercial  development  of  nations 
having  intimate  relations  with  the  United  States.  On  October  22,  1911, 
The  Chronicle  published  an  edition  of  104  pages,  fifty-two  of  which  were 
devoted  to  describing  the  industrial  advancement  of  the  Japanese  people. 
A  representative  of  the  paper  was  sent  to  that  country  and  as  a  result  of 
his  visit  every  conceivable  phase  of  the  commercial  development  of  Japan 
was  fully  dealt  with.  In  like  manner,  on  October  28,  1913,  a  Pan-American 
edition  was  published,  seventy  pages  of  which  dealt  with  the  countries  of 
Central  and  South  America.  It  was  the  most  exhaustive  presentation  of 
trade  conditions  in  Latin  American,  and  the  possibility  of  developing  more 
intimate  relations,  ever  printed  in  an  American  paper. 

These  great  editions  tell  the  story  of  newspaper  development  with  almost 
scientific  precision.  The  daily  presentation  of  the  news  is  a  matter  of  ef- 
fective organization   which  permits  the  prompt  recording  of  happenings. 

If  the  latter  are  important  they  are  interesting  to  the  reader, 
Editions  ^^"^  ^''®  most  absorbing  details  of  an  occurrence  of  an  unpre- 

Milestones  of    rneditated    sort,   unless  possessed   of   extraordinary   features. 
Progress  part  with  their  interest  very  rapidly  and  prevent  comparison, 

excepting  on  a  basis  of  length  or  mode  of  arrangement.  But 
the  special  edition  never  loses  its  interest.  It  has  tlie  qualities  which  have 
caused  such  writings  as  Froissart's  Chronicles,  or  Motley's  description  of 
a  Dutch  pageant  to  retain  their  freshness  for  successive  generations  of 
readers.  That  is  due  to  the  fact  that  they  are  conscious  efforts  to  realize 
what  is  called  the  most  important  function  of  a  newspaper;  to  faithfully 
mirror  the  times  in  which  it  is  printed.  The  elaborate  account  of  the  re- 
ception to  Grant  in  1879,  on  his  return  from  his  world  tour,  and  the  ex- 
tended description  of  the  Portola  festivities  in  October,  1909,  have  a  his- 
torical value,  as  do  also  the  Rehabilitation  issue  of  May  3,  1908,  printed 
to  show  the  degree  of  recovery  since  the  disaster  of  two  years  earlier,  and 
the  big  edition  of  May  7th,  eleven  pages  of  which  were  devoted  to  the  re- 
ception of  San  Francisco  to  the  United  States  squadron  of  battleships 
on  the  occasion  of  its  voyage  around  the  world. 


WILLIS   POLK   AND    COJMrANY'S    DESIGN    FOR    A    xN'EW 
CHRONICLE  BUILDING 


The  Call  Suspends 


189 


Another 

Chronicle 

Skyscraper 


There  are  still  other  indices  of  journalistic  progress.  In  earlier  chap- 
ters mention  lias  been  made  of  the  fact  that  the  de  Young  brothers  con- 
structed the  first  building  in  San  Francisco  wholly  devoted  to  newspaper 
purposes  in  1879,  and  that  M.  H.  de  Young  made  the  bold 
move  of  erecting  the  first  skyscraper  in  this  city  in  1890,  and 
now  it  remains  to  round  out  the  narrative  by  a  reference  to 
the  ambitious  design  of  the  gifted  architect,  Willis  Polk,  who 
has  drawn  jilans  for  a  Chronicle  building  to  be  erected  on 
the  site  of  the  present  structure  on  the  corner  of  Market,  Geary  and  Kearny 
streets,  which  will  exceed  in  loftiness  the  tallest  building  in  tlie  city.  It  is 
proposed  to  erect  in  the  place  of  the  existing  Chronicle  editice,  whose  height 
on  the  Market-street  side  is  eleven  stories,  a  structure  which  will  contain 
thirty-seven  habitable  stories.  This  is  to  be  accomplished  without  interfer- 
ing with  the  service  of  the  present  building  by  a  well  thought-out  sectional 
mode  of  construction,  which  would  permit  the  removal  of  occupants  from 
one  part  to  another  as  rapidly  as  each  section  was  completed.  The  plans  of 
Polk  provide  for  a  concrete,  fire-proofed,  class  A  building  of  structural 
steel,  with  exterior  walls  of  stone  and  brick  and  floors  of  reinforced  con- 
crete and  steel.  The  corridor  walls  are  to  be  of  marble  wainscot  and  the 
floors  of  encaustic  tiling  and  the  interior  woodwork  of  oak,  the  cost  of  the 
structure  to  exceed  eleven  hundred  thousand  dollars.  The  construction  of 
this  monumental  edifice  will  not  be  the  "last  word  in  California  journal- 
ism," but  it  will  fittingly  indicate  to  the  world  that  it  is  marching  onward, 
and  that  M.  H.  de  Young  is  determined  to  keep  in  the  van  by  being  to 
the  fore  in  civic  improvement  and  placing  his  great  journal  in  the  lead. 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

THE  CHKONICLE'S   GOLDEN   JUBILEE  AND 
EXPOSITION    EDITION. 


Publication  That  Stiroulated  Interest  in  the  P.  P.  I.  E. — Ninety-two  Pages  of 
Beading  Matter  and  Illustrations — Advertising  Eecord  Breaker — Auspicious 
Opening  of  San  Francisco's  Glreat  Show — Critics  Declare  That  It  Has  Surpassed 
All  Previous  Expositions — Record  Breaking  Attendance  of  the  First  Months — 
An  Ancient  Question  Up  for  Decision — The  Attempt  to  Unload  Spring  Valley 
on  the  City — A  Contest  in  Which  The  Chronicle  Stood  Alone  and  Won  Out. 


HE  ]ireceding  cliapters  appeared  in  a  special  edition  of 
the  San  Francisco  Chronicle  published  on  the  16th  of 
January,  1915.  Certain  references  have  probably  in- 
dicated to'  the  reader  that,  the  publication  of  the 
sketch  of  journalism  had  for  its  object  the  celebration 
of  an  event  which  was  regarded  with  great  interest  by 
the  newspaper  fraternity  of  the  United  States;  but  it 
remained  to  be  related  in  this  concluding  chapter  how 
it  was  received,  and  to  describe  at  some  length  the  features  of  the  San 
Francisco  Chronicle's  Exposition  and  Golden  Jubilee  Edition. 

That  it  merits  attention  in  a  sketch  of  California  journalism  will  be 
conceded  when  it  is  stated  that  the  appearance  of  the  jubilee  edition  was 
greeted  with  eulogistic  comments  by  contemporaries  throughout  the  entire 
Union.  The  tone  of  these  told  the  story  of  a  clear  recognition  by  editors 
that  a  great  journalistic  feat  had  been  accomplished,  and  that  The  Chron- 
icle had  added  another  to  its  long  list  of  striking  achievements  of  the  sort 
characterized  by  the  phrase :     "The  journalism  that  does  things." 

The  tributes  to  the  publication  were  exceeded  in  warmth  only  by  the 
congratulations  extended  to  M.  H.  de  Young,  wliose  fiftieth  year  of  con- 
tinuous ownership  and  conduct  of  The  Chronicle  tlie  Jul)ilee  Edition  cele- 
brated. The  foremost  publishers  and  editors  of  the  land 
literally  showered  good  wishes  and  compliments  upon  him, 
and  commented  on  the  unique  position  he  occupies  in  Ameri- 
can journalism.  In  successive  editions  of  The  Chronicle 
after  January  16th  pages  of  these  congratulatory  letters  were 
printed  to  testify  the  recipient's  appreciation  and  to  substantiate  the  as- 
sumption of  the  writer  of  this  sketch  that  the  leading  journalists  of 
America  recognized  in  the  San  Francisco  Chronicle  an  exponent  of  "the 
journalism  that  does  things." 

The  Jubilee  Edition  consisted  of  ninety-two  pages.    Its  principal  feature 

190 


Lavish 
Praise 
Bestowed 


OJr*  c  ■-      - 

~-^  . .  t.  C I^  "^^ 

■^j  ro  -:  ^ 

"  Oj"    .o  JT 

.  -  "3  c  w  <^  w 

^  0)  O  M  ■-'"5 

O  ^^  _,  ^   Cti  «£> 


Hi) 


Golden  Jubilee  Edition  191 


was  the  sketch  of  "Journalism  in  California,"  here  reproduced.  It  oc- 
cupied twenty-two  pages,  or  176  columns,  making  it,  perhaps,  the  longest 
article  ever  printed  in  a  single  issue  of  a  daily  paper.  In  addition  to  this 
there  were  presented  twelve  pages  devoted  to  describing  the  scope  of  the 
Panama-Pacific  International  Exposition,  which  was  on  the  eve  of  being 
opened  to  the  public.  It  was  by  all  odds  the  most  comprehensive  account 
of  the  preparations  for  the  great  event  published  up  to  that  time  and  was 
accompanied  by  numerous  half-tones,  among  them  a  double-page  birdseye 
view  of  the  palaces  and  other  completed  buildings.  It  shared  with  tiie 
history  of  journalism  the  lavish  praise  bestowed  upon  the  edition. 

The  editors  who  reviewed  the  contents  of  the  Jubilee  Edition  of  The 
Chronicle  were  not  slow  to  remark  that  the  issue  in  itself  constituted  a 
milestone  on  San  Francisco's  road  of  progress.  One  writer  called  attention 
to  the  significance  of  the  fact  that  there  were  335  columns 
Formidable  °^  advertisements.  "It  would  have  been  marvelous,"  he  said, 
Show  of  "even  if  the  onward  march  had  been  uninterrupted,  that  a 

Advertisementscity  whose  years  numbered  scarcely  sixty-five  should  be  able 
to  furnish  the  support  so  great  a  quantity  of  advertising  in 
a  single  issue  implies,  but  when  it  is  borne  in  mind  that  less  than  nine 
years  ago  The  Chronicle  was  compelled  to  reorganize  and  grow  over  again, 
words  fail  adequately  to  describe  the  astounding  accomplishment." 

This  sized  up  the  situation  exactly,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  the 
thousand  or  more  editors  who  critically  examined  the  Jubilee  Edition 
were  able  to  form  a  juster  estimate  of  the  thoroughness  of  San  Francisco's 
rehabilitation  than  they  could  have  done  from  the  perusal  of  pages  of 
statistics,  albeit  there  was  plenty  of  such  information  in  its  columns. 
"Boosters"  do  not  lack  the  ability  to  frame  alluring  stories,  but  ninety- 
two  page  editions  containing  335  columns  of  advertising  tell  a  tale  that 
the  most  critical  examination  by  an  advocate  of  blue  sky  legislation  could 
not  discredit. 

There  can  hardly  be  two  opinions  concerning  the  judgment  passed  on 
that  part  of  the  Jubilee  Edition  devoted  to  showing  the  state  of  com- 
pleteness of  the  exposition.     There  had  been  much  misinformation  dis- 
seminated by  Eastern  newspapers  calculated  to  convey  the 
D    bt  impression  that  circumstances  created  by  the  war  would  make 

Cleared  i^  necessary  to  defer  the  opening  of  the  fair,  perhaps  compel 

Away  its  indefinite  postponement.     Contradictions  seemed  power- 

less to  correct  the  error,  perhaps  because  the  few  words  in 
which  they  were  couched  failed  to  attract  public  attention.  But  when  The 
Chronicle  hurled  its  broadside  of  facts,  which  it  took  pains  to  get  into  the 
hands  of  every  influential  editor  on  the  other  side  of  the  Bocky  mountains, 
doubts  on  the  subject  vanished  like  mist  before  a  summer  morning's  sun. 

The  Jubilee  Edition  was  published  on  the  16th  of  January,  and  long 
before  the  opening  day  of  the  exposition,  which  occurred  on  the  20th  of 
February,  there  were  few  places  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
land  that  had  not  been  made  aware  of  the  stage  of  readiness  attained. 
Birdseye  views,  pictures  of  State  buildings  and  those  of  foreign  countries 
furnished  evidence  from  which  there  was  no  escape.  There  was  no  more 
incredulity.  It  was  exchanged  for  wondering  expressions  that  San  Fran- 
cisco, in  spite  of  all  that  had  happened,  was  courageously  moving  ahead. 


192  Journalism  in  California 

and  Avas  to  afford  to  the  world  the  spectacle  of  showing  the  progress  made 
in  the  arts  of  peace  while  the  greatest  conflict  of  all  times  was  raging  in 
Europe. 

The  opening  took  place  on  the  day  planned,  and  the  promise  of  those 
who  projected  the  great  enterprise  and  devoted  years  of  strenuous  labor  to 
perfecting  the  design  of  making  the  Panama-Pacific  International  Exposi- 
tion surpass  all  preceding  affairs  of  the  kind  was  realized. 
^  ®  The   palaces    devoted    to   exhibits    were    completed    and    the 

Opened^on  installation  was  so  far  advanced  that  the  gaps  made  by 
Time  tl'e  failure  of  several  foreign  nations  to  get  their  displays 

into  place  were  scarcely  noticed.  The  ceremonies  attending 
the  opening  were  less  formal  in  their  character  than  those  witnessed  at 
previous  international  expositions  in  this  country.  Instead  of  a  military 
parade  it  was  suggested  that  an  invasion  of  the  grounds  by  citizens  en 
masse  would  be  more  impressive.  No  serious  attempt  was  made  to  organize 
the  throngs  that  passed  through  the  many  gates  into  the  grounds,  but  the 
multitude  marching  along  Van  Xess  avenue  comported  itself  with  as  much 
orderliness  as  if  drilled  by  captains,  and  presented  a  spectacle  as  amazing 
as  it  was  unique. 

Nearly  a  quarter  of  a  million  people  passed  through  the  turnstiles  on 
that   eventful   20th   day   of   February,   the   exact   number   recorded  being 
245,143.     This  vast  multitude  must  have  shared  the  view  later  expressed 
by  the  eminent  art  critic,  Royal  Cortissoz  of  New  York,  in 
Q  the  Tribune  of  that  city,  that  "the  most  interesting  work  of 

Million  ^^^  ^^  ^^^®  f^^^  ^^  ^'^®  ^'^^^"  itself."     It  is  a  fact  worth  putting 

Attendance  down  in  black  and  white  that  comparatively  few  on  tliat  open- 
ing day  penetrated  to  the  interior  of  the  exhibit  palaces. 
They  were  content  to  feast  their  eyes  on  what  Mr.  Cortissoz  characterized 
"the  realization  of  the  poet's  vision,"  "a  dream  come  true."  They  felt  what 
he  so  well  expressed  that  it  was  "exquisite,  the  quintessence  of  all  things 
exquisite." 

Admiration  equally  enthusiastic  was  felt  and  expressed  by  other  dis- 
tinguished visitors,  perhaps  in  a  more  prosaic  but  none  the  less  convincing 
fashion.  The  Secretary  of  Interior,  Franklin  K.  Lane,  deputed  by  the 
President  to  represent  the  Nation  at  tlie  opening  function,  tlie  chief  ex- 
ecutive feeling  that  he  could  not  desert  his  post  at  ^yashington,  owing 
to  the  constant  demands  upon  his  attention  created  by  the  European  war, 
voiced  his  amazement  in  a  brief  but  eloquent  speech  which  was  telegraphed 
all  over  the  world,  and  was  accepted  as  a  deserved  tribute  to  the  greatest 
achievement  of  modern  times. 

There  were  many  who  had  feared  that  the  great  conflict  raging  on  tlie 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic  would  compel  the  postponement  of  tbe  exposition, 
but  when  the  President  touched  the  button  in  his  cabinet  Avliich  sent  tlie 
radio  flash  that  started  up  the  machinery  of  the  fair,  they 
Started  revised  their   earlier  o])inion,   and   freely  gave  utterance  to 

jjj^^iQ  the  belief  that  the  perseverance  in  the  project  would  cause 

Plash  it   to   be   distinguished   from   all   similar   undertakings.      It 

would  focus  the  attention  of  mankind  upon  the  fact  that, 
while  the  nations  of  the  old  world  were  engaged  in  the  bloody  work  of 
trying  to  extinguish  each  other,  Americans  were  occupied  in  an  admirable 
effort  to  show  the  progress  achieved  by  mankind  in  the  arts  of  pea^ee. 


Golden  Jubilee  Edition  193 

During  the  first  three  days  of  the  exposition  440,644  persons  passed 
througli  tTie  turnstiles.  It  had  been  supposed  that  the  remoteness  of  San 
Francisco  from  the  great  centers  of  population  would  militate  against  a  large 
patronage.  It  was  said,  when  San  Francisco  urged  upon  Congress  the 
propriety  of  according  to  the  city  which  had  been  foremost  in  promoting 
interest  in  the  construction  of  the  Panama  canal  the  honor  of  celebrating 
the  completion  of  the  greatest  enterprise  of  modern  times,  that  the  Pacific 
Coast  was  too  far  away  from  the  heart  of  the  country  to  make  the  affair  a 
success. 

Doubtless  those  who  urged  this  objection  were  convinced  of  the  sound- 
ness of  the  assumption,  but  they  underrated  the  spirit  of  the  community 
which  had  in  the  short  space  of  nine  years  completely  recovered  from  the 
terrible  disaster  which  had  wiped  out  the  efforts  of  more  than 
^^^    .  a  half  century  of  energetic  city  building.  Long  before  the 

Not'^off^tlie  opening  of  the  Panama-Pacific  International  Exposition  the 
Map  rehabilitation  had  been  the  subject  of  wondering  comment 

throughout  the  world,  but  it  needed  the  accomplishment 
which  has  extorted  universal  tributes  to  crystallize  the  freely  expressed 
opinion  that  the  twentieth  century  had  witnessed  no  greater  achievement 
than  that  of  the  metropolis  of  the  Pacific  Coast,  which  had  succeeded  in 
surpassing  all  previous  attempts  to  illustrate  the  progress  of  mankind. 

Whether  the  expectations  created  by  the  astonishing  record  of  the 
first  two  months  of  the  exposition  are  realized  or  not  does  not  much  matter. 
There  is  every  reason  for  believing  that  the  figures  of  attendance  at  the 
Columbian  and  the  Louisiana  Purchase  Expositions  will  not  greatly  exceed 
those  of  the  Panama-Pacific  International  Exposition,  if  at  all.  At  the 
date  of  this  writing.  May  9th,  4,370,897  admissions  had  been  recorded,  and 
the  tide  of  travel  toward  San  Francisco  was  just  beginning  to  rise.  There 
is,  therefore,  some  warrant  for  the  assurance  felt  that  the  exposition  of 
1915  will  not  suffer  by  comparison  on  this  score,  and  that  it  will  have 
proved  more  than  what  the  French  speak  of  as  a  success  d'estime,  which  it 
is  already  conceded  to  be  by  competent  and  unbiased  critics  who  un- 
hesitatingly declare  that  in  comprehensiveness  and  attractiveness  it  has 
never  been  surpassed. 

That  the  newspapers  of  San  Francisco  may  justly  claim  that  a  large 
part  of  this  success  was  due  to  their  untiring  efforts  to  stimulate  interest 
in  the  great  enterprise  is  recognized  on  every  hand.  The  people,  however, 
have  become  so  accustomed  to  witnessing  the  performance  of 
^^'^^  this  duty  they  have  almost  ceased  to  recognize  the  service  per- 

^j^g  formed  and  accept  it  as  a  matter  of  course,  only  pausing  to 

Newspapers  express  surprise  when  the  boost  note  is  occasionally  inter- 
rupted by  a  deserved  bit  of  criticism.  It  is  too  early  to  tell 
the  story  of  the  exposition.  That  will  be  done  later  by  many  writers,  some 
of  whom  may  see  the  propriety  of  according  to  the  press  full  credit  for  the 
share  taken  by  it  in  the  promotion  of  the  great  undertaking. 

To  round  out  this  sketch  of  journalism  in  California  another  verification 
of  the  saying  that  history  repeats  itself  may  be  cited.  In  an  earlier  chapter 
the  story  of  the  winning  of  the  fight  for  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution 
of  1879  by  The  Chronicle  was  told  at  some  length.  Its  m.ost  pronounced 
journalistic  feature  was  the  prominence  it  gave  to  the  fact  that  the  only 
newspaper   advocating   its   adoption   was   The   Chronicle.      This   feat   of 


194  Journalism  in  California 

winning  out  against  the  combination  of  many  interests  was  nearly  paralleled 
in  the  contest  over  the  proposal  of  the  Spring  Valley  Water  Company  to 
sell  a  part  of  its  property  to  San  Francisco  for  the  sum  of  $34,500,000. 

The  question  of  the  acquisition  of  a  water  supply  by  the  municipality 
had  been  under  discussion  for  many  years,  and  the  public  mind  had  become 
greatly  confused  over  the  subject.     Upon  one  point  there  was  something 

approaching  unanimity  of  sentiment.  At  an  election  held  to 
Another  secure  the  necessary  authority  to  issue  bonds  for  the  purpose 

Sup^ply  °^  introducing  water  from  the  Iletch-Hetchy  valley  to  the 

Campaign  city,  the  people  voted  nearly  twenty  to  one  in  favor  of  the 

project.  At  this  election  there  was  little  evidence  that 
the  voters  had  in  mind  acquiring  any  supply  other  than  that  which  could 
be  derived  from  the  Sierra.  Had  there  been  a  suggestion  that  the 
$45,000,000  asked  for  was  to  be  supplemented  by  a  demand  for  an  addi- 
tional $35,000,000,  it  would  have  been  flouted. 

There  was  no  mistaking  the  attitude  of  the  community  at  that  time. 
It  found  plain  expression  in  denunciation  of  the  course  of  the  corporation 
and  in  the  emphatic  demand  for  pure  mountain  water.  Subsequently 
Spring  Valley  by  clever  manipulation  succeeded  in  placing  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  the  speedy  introduction  of  Sierra  water,  and  actually  managed  to 
create  the  impression  that  the  only  mode  of  settling  the  water  question  was 
to  buy  the  reservoirs  and  other  property  of  the  peninsula  system.  There 
were  some  who  believed  that  it  would  be  desirable  to  acquire  the  Spring 
Valley  system,  but  the  most  of  those  who  lent  support  to  the  proposition 
submitted  in  1910  to  buy  it  at  a  cost  of  $35,000,000  frankly  admitted  that 
they  did  so  because  they  were  convinced  that  the  Spring  Valley  corporation 
was  a  sort  of  "old  man  of  the  sea,"  and  that  if  permitted  to  continue  in  ex- 
istence the  growth  of  the  city  would  be  retarded. 

At  the  election  when  the  $35,000,000  proposition  was  submitted,  all  the 
property  of  the  Sprjng  Valley  was  included.  The  proposal  came  near 
receiving  the  requisite  two-thirds  vote,  and  would  probably  have  done  so 

had  not  the  then  Mayor,  McCarthy,  opposed  the  purchase  on 
J^Jl®    .  the  ground  that  the  price  was  excessive.     He  undoubtedly 

Wins  a  influenced  enough  voters  to  defeat  the  proposal.    It  does  not 

Big  Victory      appear  that  there  was  any  effort  made  to  secure  a  reduction 

of  the  price  demanded  by  Spring  Valley.  After  some  agita- 
tion condemnation  proceedings  were  begun  by  the  city,  but  they  were  not 
pushed,  and  the  community  toward  the  close  of  1914  was  treated  to  a  gen- 
uine surprise  by  the  administration  in  power,  which  announced  that  it 
looked  with  favor  on  an  offer  of  Spring  Valley  to  sell  part  of  its  property 
for  $34,500,000  and  half  of  a  large  sum  of  impounded  excess  rates  which 
the  courts  had  decided  should  be  restored  to  consumers  from  whom  they 
had  been  illegally  exacted. 

The  Chronicle  vigorously  opposed  the  proposal,  pointing  out  that  the 
offer  of  Spring  Valley  was  a  virtual  increase  of  from  ten  to  fifteen  million 
dollars  over  the  amount  rejected  at  the  preceding  election.  It  demonstrated 
statistically  and  otherwise  that  the  withdrawn  lands  were  worth  several 
million  dollars  and  that  the  company  proposed  to  hold  out  much  land  which 
would  be  needed  if  its  stored  waters  were  to  be  saved  from  pollution.  Every 
paper  in  San  Francisco  but  The  Chronicle  advocated  the  purchase,  but  it 
failed  of  acceptance  by  nearly  8000  votes.  ^ 


swn^asco 

CHRONICl 


Jan.lG 
1915 


Fiflj/  Ifearp  oFCati£rjm  okamahsMj 


'■^m^PS' 


TITLE   PAGE   OP  JUBILEE   EDITION  OP   SAN   B'RANCISCO   CHRONICLE, 
PUBLISHED  JANUARY  16,   1915 


19 


SCENE    AT    THE    PANAMA-PACIFIC    INTERNATIONAL 
EXPOSITION   ON   THE   OPENING    DAY 


Golden  Jubilee  Edition 


195 


It  is  probable  that  the  question  will  be  definitely  settled  before  this 
sketch  of  journalism  in  California  ceases  to  interest  San  Franciscans,  but 
it  may  be  confidently  predicted  that  better  arguments  will  have  to  be  sup- 
plied than  were  offered  on  May  20,  1915,  before  the  people  of  San  Fran- 
cisco will  be  induced  to  abandon  the  idea  of  bringing  water  from  the  Sierra 
to  the  city. 


Memoirs 

of 

George  Hamlin  Fitch 


^ 


George  Hamlin  Fitch 

His  Memoirs  of  Thirty-five  Years  on  The  Chronicle 


HIETY-FIVE  years  of  continuous  service  on  one  news- 
paper is  a  rather  remarkable  record  in  this  country, 
where  change  is  the  rule,  not  the  exception.  Yet  my 
long  service  on  The  Chronicle  is  exceeded  by  that  of 
several  men,  still  in  harness,  among  whom  may  be 
named  John  P.  Young,  the  managing  editor;  Edward 
J.  Andersen,  the  librarian;  Henry  F,  Blote,  collector, 
and  W.  F.  Cameron,  traveling  advertising  solicitor.     All 

these  men  were  on  The  Chronicle  when  I  joined  it  in  the  winter  of  1879-80. 
It  is  a  distinction  of  The  Chronicle,  shared  by  very  few  newspapers  in 

this  country,  that  it  has  kept  men  as  heads  of  departments  for  long  terms 

of  service. 

FREE  FROM  OFFICE  POLITICS 

The  Chronicle  office  has  been,  in  the  main,  free  from  what  is  known 
as  politics — that  is,  if  a  man  was  competent  and  attended  to  his  work,  he 
felt  assured  that  his  situation  was  safe.  In  too  many  American  news- 
paper offices  the  caprice  of  the  proprietor  makes  employment  very  uncer- 
tain. No  one  can  tell  what  a  day  may  bring  forth.  On  one  New  York 
newspaper  the  proprietor,  who  is  largely  an  absentee,  has  been  known  to 
jump  an  obscure  reporter  to  the  important  post  of  managing  editor  and  to 
install  a  correspondent  in  a  small  suburban  town  as  city  editor.  Of  course, 
in  such  an  office,  there  is  no  loyalty  to  the  paper,  and  no  feeling  of  safety. 

In  other  offices  the  proprietor  has  favorites  who  are  permitted  a  free 
hand,  and  no  one  who  does  not  kowtow  to  these  favorites  is  permitted  to 
remain  on  the  staff.  In  such  offices  rivals  for  the  favor  of  the  chief  always 
have  a  knife  ready  for  each  other.  They  spend  much  of  the  energy  which 
should  be  devoted  to  their  work  in  protecting  themselves  from  attack  and 
in  planning  means  of  removing  dangerous  rivals. 


STARTING  OF  THE  CHRONICLE 

It  was  not  my  fortune  to  see  the  founding  of  The  Chronicle  by 
Charles  and  M.  H.  de  Young  in  1865.  My  boyhood  was  spent  in  San 
Francisco,  but  in  the  same  year  that  The  Chronicle  was  started  my  parents 
removed  to  the  East.  For  fourteen  years  my  life  was  spent  in  New  York 
State  and  South  Carolina,  in  preparatory  schools,  on  a  Southern  plantation 

199 


200  Journalism  in  California 

and  in  Cornell  University.  During  all  these  years  friends  iu  this  city 
frequently  sent  me  copies  of  The  Chronicle,  so  that  I  was  familiar  with  its 
remarkable  success.  Finally  in  June,  1879,  I  came  back  to  San  Francisco, 
intending  to  spend  a  few  months  with  my  parents  and  then  return  to  the 
K^ew  York  Tribune,  where  I  had  been  three  years. 

MY   FIRST  WORK   ON   THE   CHRONICLE 

The  fact  that  a  substitute  at  the  telegraph  news  desk  proved  incom- 
petent gave  me  a  chance  to  work  several  weeks  on  The  Chronicle.  Then 
when  the  regular  editor  returned  I  tried  to  do  work  in  the  local  department, 
but  the  city  editor,  evidently  fearing  that  I  might  prove  to  be  a  rival,  refused 
to  print  any  of  my  contributions.  lie  was  exceedingly  polite  and  was 
always  desolated,  as  the  French  say,  that  there  was  no  sjjace  for  my  articles, 
but  I  soon  saw  that  it  was  hopeless  to  attempt  to  do  any  work  under  him. 

When  fall  came  and  I  was  preparing  to  return  to  New  York,  my 
parents  urged  me  to  stay  in  San  Francisco,  and  suggested  that  I  try  to  get 
a  place  on  The  Chronicle.  As  the  telegraph  editor,  Horace  E.  Hudson, 
was  about  to  go  to  Sacramento  to  serve  as  Legislative  correspondent,  I  was 
offered  his  place,  and  in  addition  was  given  the  work  of  book  reviewer, 
which  then  was  not  strenuous,  as  The  Chronicle  printed  only  about  two 
columns  of  reviews  every  Sunday. 

WORK  OF  THE  DE  YOUNG  BROTHERS 

Thus  it  came  about  that  I  was  brought  into  daily  contact  with  the  two 
proprietors  of  The  Chronicle  and  witnessed  some  of  the  stirring  history 
of  those  early  years.  Looking  then  at  the  youthful  face  of  Charles  de 
Young,  it  seemed  scarcely  credible  that  he  had  been  engaged  for  fourteen 
years  in  the  work  of  issuing  a  daily  newspaper,  with  no  help  save  that  of 
his  brother,  M.  H.  de  Young,  who  managed  the  business  department. 

The  history  of  American  journalism  has  no  parallel  for  the  founding 
and  the  growth  of  the  San  Francisco  Chronicle.  Most  of  the  large  news- 
papers of  this  country  were  founded  by  men  Avho  had  conspicuous  financial 
or  political  backing;  but  here  was  a  paper  started  by  two  boys,  17  and  19 
years  of  age,  practically  self-educated,  and  carried  on  from  week  to  week 
with  no  assurance  that  it  would  live  beyond  any  week. 

AGAINST  THE  FIERCEST  COMPETITION 

No  assistance  was  ever  given  The  Chronicle  by  any  big  corporation  or 
political  body.  The  two  brothers  fought  their  way  up  against  the  fiercest 
competition.  The  old,  well-established  newspapers  seemed  to  feel  it  as  a 
personal  grievance  that  this  young,  aggressive  journal  should  have  the 
hardihood  to  rush  into  the  field  and  to  beat  them  at  their  own  game. 
Started  as  the  Dramatic  Chronicle  for  free  distribution  in  the  various 
theaters,  the  paper  in  three  years  won  such  success  that  it  became  a  regular 
daily  newspaper,  independent  in  politics  and  in  all  other  things. 

The  success  of  The  Chronicle  was  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  both 
proprietors  were  practical  printers,  knew  all  about  the  newspaper  game,  and 
had  the  instinctive  news  sense  without  which  no  great  success  in  journalism 
was  ever  won.    They  also  possessed  the  equally  valuable  faculty  of  selecting 


SCULPTURK   AT    THt:    KXiH.i.srriON:    AUTUMN, 
BY  FURIO  PICCIRILLI 


Founding  of  the  Chronicle  201 

the  right  men  to  carry  on  the  various  dej^artments  of  the  paper.  Ilence  it 
was  that  with  a  comparatively  small  but  brilliant  editorial  force,  The 
Chronicle  won  its  way  to  the  leadership  of  the  San  Francisco  newspaper 
world. 

Its  first  big  news  beat  was  in  giving  all  the  details  of  the  great  earth- 
quake of  1868  hours  before  the  other  papers  appeared  on  the  street.  In 
the  years  that  followed  The  Chronicle  was  always  first  in  the  field  with  the 
news  and  first  also  to  champion  the  cause  of  the  common  people.  Its  history 
is  mainly  a  record  of  fights  against  old  established  rights  by  which  monopo- 
lies and  cajDitalists  cheated  the  people  who  work  with  their  hands. 

BRILLIANT    STAFF    OF    EARLY    DAYS 

Among  the  brilliant  men  who  helped  to  make  The  Chronicle  famous  in 
those  early  days  were  William  M.  Lalfan,  who  afterward  became  a  power 
on  the  New  York  Sun  and  organized  a  great  news  bureau ;  Tom  Xewcombe; 
Howard  F.  Sutherland,  one  of  the  best  city  editors  San  Francisco  ever  saw, 
who  is  now  known  as  a  poet  and  writer  of  unusual  charm;  Ned  Townsend 
whose  "Chimmie  Fadden"  sketches  gave  him  a  national  reputation;  Sam 
Davis,  a  genuine  humorist,  who  made  the  Carson  Appeal  known  all  over  the 
country  for  its  racy  humor  and  its  laughable  "fakes;"  Dan  O'Connell,  a 
writer  of  melodious  verse  and  a  man  of  singular  charm  of  manner;  Charles 
Warren  Stoddard,  the  poet  of  the  South  Seas,  and  one  of  the  finest  writers 
California  has  produced;  Frank  Pixley,  who  afterward  founded  the  Argo- 
naut and  made  people  watch  for  its  appearance  to  see  what  he  had  to  say 
of  the  week's  events ;  Fred  Somers,  a  literary  genius,  whose  early  death  was 
a  great  loss  to  American  periodical  literature;  Sam  Scabough,  the  ablest  of 
the  old-time  editorial  writers,  who  abandoned  the  Sacramento  Union  when 
it  was  bought  by  the  railroad  and  who  continued  to  write  sledge-hammer 
editorials  for  The  Chronicle  literally  to  the  day  of  his  death ;  Charles  Wet- 
more ;  D.  F.  Yerdenal,  a  brilliant,  witty  writer,  who  for  years  wrote  a 
regular  weekly  letter  from  New  York ;  Harry  Dam,  most  versatile  of 
Avriters,  who  afterward  made  a  great  hit  in  London  Journalism,  and  Frank 
Bailey  Millard,  who  as  a  literary  free  lance  has  contributed  for  years  to 
leading  American  magazines. 

GENIUS   OF   CHARLES   DE   YOUNG 

All  these  men  were  Avriters  and  most  of  them  had  the  newspaper  faculty 
highly  developed ;  but  abler  than  any  of  them  was  Charles  de  Young,  who 
had  picked  up  his  newspaper  training.  In  fact,  he  was  a  newspaper  genius, 
with  no  limit  to  his  capacity  for  grasping  news  opportunities  and  turning 
them  to  brilliant  account.  A  tireless  worker,  he  seemed  to  have  the  power 
of  infecting  others  with  his  own  enthusiasm,  so  that  when  he  set  about  the 
working  up  of  any  big  newspaper  "story"  he  electrified  the  whole  office. 
Every  man  was  on  his  mettle,  and  the  result  was  a  remarkable  amount  of 
work  done  in  record  time  at  the  highest  pressure. 

When  I  came  on  The  Chronicle  my  curiosity  was  very  strong  in  regard 
to  the  personal  traits  of  Charles  de  Young,  whose  fame  as  a  newspaper 
genius  had  reached  New  York.  He  usually  came  into  the  office  late  in  the 
evening,  and  generally  he  was  "loaded"  with  some  story,  unknown  to  the 


202  Journalism  in  California 

other  newspapers.  He  was  the  terror  of  the  old  night  editor,  because  he 
began  at  once  to  rip  up  all  the  arrangements  for  the  morning  paper.  He 
sent  out  half  a  dozen  men  to  get  further  facts,  and  then  when  they  came 
lushing  in  with  their  stories  he  rapidly  ran  through  their  "copy"  and  indi- 
cated features  which  should  be  further  developed.  The  pages  that  had  been 
carefully  "made  up"  he  cleared  for  his  sensation,  and  he  remained  to  see 
that  the  heads  were  well  written  and  that  everything  was  in  shape.  Only 
when  the  presses  began  to  clang  would  he  go  home  with  a  copy  of  The 
Chronicle  damp  from  the  press. 

SPECIMEN   OF  HIS  EFFECTIVE  WORK 

A  few  days  after  I  joined  The  Chronicle  Charles  de  Young  gave  a 
conspicuous  exhibition  of  his  genius  for  newspaper  work.  The  City  Archi- 
tect had  been  harshly  criticised  because  of  some  errors  in  his  plans  for 
what  was  then  known  as  the  new  City  Hall  at  McAllister  and  Larkin  streets. 
Charles  de  Young  sent  to  his  correspondent  in  Chicago  and  had  the  archi- 
tect's Chicago  record  dug  up.  It  was  found  he  had  been  dismissed  because 
steps  that  he  had  designed  for  a  schoolhouse  did  not  reach  to  the  front  door. 
All  these  facts,  with  a  diagram  showing  the  faulty  plans,  were  printed  by 
The  Chronicle  in  a  broadside  which  filled  more  than  a  page.  The  architect 
read  The  Chronicle  at  his  breakfast,  came  down  to  his  office  and  handed  in 
his  resignation. 

That  was  a  specimen  of  the  effective  work  done  by  Charles  de  Young 
when  he  once  decided  on  a  course  of  action. 

TRAITS   OF   M.   H.   DE  YOUNG 

When  swift  and  unexpected  death  removed  Charles  de  Young  in  1880, 
the  control  of  The  Chronicle  was  taken  up  by  his  brother,  M.  H.  de  Young, 
who  ever  since  has  continued  to  manage  the  newspaper.  It  is  not  often  that 
a  man  combines  the  qualities  of  a  great  editor  and  an  able  business  man- 
ager, yet  M.  H.  de  Young  is  one  of  the  few  men  who  have  made  a  con- 
spicuous success  in  both  branches  of  journalism.  Whitelaw  Eeid  was  the  only 
other  American  editor  who  was  able  to  manage  both  branches  of  a  news- 
paper with  rare  ability.  The  elder  Bennett,  Qreeley,  Raymond,  Bryant, 
Dana,  AVatterson,  Murat  Halstead  and  Samuel  Bowles — all  were  great 
editors,  but  not  one  could  have  managed  the  business  department  of  the 
journals  that  they  made  famous.  It  was  this  rare  business  ability,  with  a 
conservatism  which  never  interfered  with  the  development  of  the  news, 
which  gave  The  Chronicle  such  a  great  impetus  in  the  early  '80s,  The 
State  in  those  years  made  rapid  progress,  and  The  Chronicle  kept  pace  with 
the  growth  and  development  of  California. 

My  relations  with  M.  H.  de  Young  have  always  been  pleasant  and  so 
great  became  my  attachment  to  the  paper  that  one  time  when  offered  a  very 
large  increase  of  salary  to  join  the  staff  of  another  San  Francisco  paper,  I 
found  when  I  attempted  to  go  that  it  was  impossible.  And  this  loyalty  is 
shared  by  nearly  every  one  who  has  worked  years  on  the  paper. 


Founding  of  the  Chronicle  208 

WORK    AS    NIGHT    EDITOR 

Much  of  my  work  in  the  last  thirty-five  years  has  been  that  of  the  night 
editor,  the  man  who  actually  arranges  the  news  in  the  paper  and  has  the  last 
word  in  its  development.  He  it  is  who  meets  sudden  emergencies  late  at 
night  and  often  recasts  the  paper  to  disphiy  sensational  news.  The  work 
demands  prompt  decision,  iron  nerve  and  great  capacity  to  resist  nervous 
strain.  The  successful  niglit  editor  always  has  one  eye  on  the  clock,  and  he 
must  have  the  faculty  of  getting  the  best  work  out  of  the  make-up  men  in 
his  charge.  He  must  be  able  to  "cut"  a  column  stoiy  to  a  third  of  a  column 
and  yet  not  drop  out  any  nuiterial  facts,  and  all  this  must  be  done  at  top 
speed. 

ONE   OF  THE   CHRONICLE   "BEATS" 

In  my  career  on  The  Chronicle  the  greatest  news  beat  scored  was  on 
the  occasion  of  the  death  of  General  Grant  at  Mt.  McGregor  on  the  Hudson. 
Grant  had  been  kept  alive  for  days  by  his  doctors  so  that  he  could  finish  his 
biography,  the  proceeds  of  which  he  desired  to  leave  for  the  support  of  his 
wife.  He  died  at  8  o'clock  in  the  morning,  which  was  5  o'clock  in  San 
Francisco.  On  that  night  I  had  had  a  feeling  that  the  news  of  his  death 
would  come.  So  I  had  the  three-page  obituary  stereotyped  and  ready  and 
after  finishing  work  at  the  office  I  strolled  down  to  the  Western  Union  office 
to  have  a  talk  with  the  night  manager.  He  happened  to  be  alone  in  the 
large  operating  room  which,  usually  noisy  with  the  click  of  many  telegraph 
instruments,  was  now  as  still  as  death.  Suddenly  while  we  were  talking 
there  was  a  sharp  call  on  the  New  York  wnre.  The  manager  said,  "That's 
it!"  and  jumped  to  the  key.  In  a  moment  he  called  out,  "General  Grant 
is  dead  !"  I  seized  the  sheet  and  rushed  at  high  speed  to  The  Chronicle 
office.  Instantly  tlie  news  was  set  up,  the  headlines  changed,  and  in  15 
minutes  The  Chronicle,  announcing  the  death,  was  flying  from  the  presses. 
Although  25,000  papers  had  been  ''run  off,"  these  were  "killed"  and  The 
Chronicle  reached  all  its  country  and  local  subscribers  with  the  news  of 
Grant's  death.     The  other  papers  got  out  extras  three  hours  later. 

The  Chronicle  was  the  only  American  newspaper  which  reached  every 
subscriber  with  this  important  news. 

THE   SUNDAY   BOOK   PAGE 

Another  branch  of  newspaper  work  in  which  I  have  taken  the  keenest 
interest  is  book  reviews.  It  is  not  often  that  one  man  imites  executive  work 
and  the  writing  of  literary  criticism.  But  with  me  books  have  been  my 
hobby,  and  writing  which  would  have  worn  out  another  man  has  been  my 
chief  relaxation  from  strenuous  executive  work.  In  carrying  on  the  literary 
page,  which  has  become  so  marked  a  feature  of  the  Sunday  edition  of  The 
Chronicle,  M.  H.  de  Young  gave  me  an  absolutely  free  hand  from  the  out- 
set, so  that  the  page  has  been  conducted  with  perfect  freedom  from  all 
advertising  taint.  Never  in  all  these  years  has  Mr.  de  Young  ever  asked 
me  to  give  a  poor  book  a  good  notice  because  it  was  advertised  liberally. 
With  consistent  purpose  I  have  managed  this  page  in  the  interest  of  the 
reader  of  good  books,  and  although  many  readers  may  have  differed  with 
me  in  my  judgments  of  books,  no  one  ever  brought  the  charge  of  dishonesty 


204  Journalism  in  California 

or  incompetence  against  any  of  the  reviews.  In  these  years  hundreds  of 
letters  have  come  to  me  from  men  and  women  saying  they  had  been  helped 
by  my  suggestions  in  this'  book  page.  Scores  of  young  authors,  especially 
California  writers,  have  told  me  that  my  reviews  were  the  first  to  call  at- 
tention to  their  work  and  to  predict  for  them  the  success  and  fame  which 
the  years  brought. 

This  literary  page  has  come  to  have  a  distinct  value  in  the  eyes  of  local 
and  Eastern  publishers,  and  much  of  this  success  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
M.  II.  de  Young  trusted  my  judgment  and  never  interfered  with  my  work, 

CHARLEY   DE   YOUNG'S   INFLUENCE 

All  those  who  worked  on  The  Chronicle  during  the  last  nine  years 
could  not  fail  to  be  influenced  by  young  Charles  de  Young,  who  seemed  to 
have  inherited  much  of  the  newspaper  genius  of  his  dead  uncle,  whose  name 
he  bore.  The  great  tire  first  tested  the  qualities  of  Charles  de  Young. 
Every  night  for  over  two  months  that  The  Chronicle  was  printed  in  Oak- 
land he  came  down  to  the  ferry  in  his  auto  after  midnight  and  personally 
saw  to  the  work  of  starting  the  launch  across  the  bay.  Usually  he  accom- 
panied it  to  the  foot  of  the  pier  across  the  bay,  where  the  Chronicles  were 
w^aiting.  He  saw  that  the  bundles  were  all  ready,  and  on  this  side  he  car 
ried  them  up-town  in  his  auto  and  personally  supervised  the  sending  out  of 
the  carriers.  Many  times  in  those  weeks  he  sent  me  messages  over  the  tele- 
phone, warmly  praising  the  good  newspaper  which  we  had  got  out  with  so 
much  labor  and  nervous  strain. 

Later,  when  The  Chronicle  building  was  rehabilitated,  he  became  the 
life  of  the  place  and  continued  to  show  his  keen  interest  in  every  depart- 
ment of  the  paper  until  stricken  with  the  illness  which  cut  short  his  active 
and  useful  life. 

Singularly  democratic  in  all  his  tastes,  Charles  de  Young  had  the 
faculty  of  inspiring  those  around  him  with  his  own  abounding  energy  and 
enthusiasm  and  had  he  lived  he  would  have  impressed  his  personality  on 
California  journalism.  The  saddest  feature  of  his  death  Avas  that  it  came 
just  Avlien  he  was  reaching  the  fullness  of  his  powers. 

These  reminiscences  I  have  written  very  frankly  because  it  seems  to  me 
that  such  work  as  this  is  only  effective  when  it  comes  straight  from  the 
heart.  Much  of  my  life  has  been  given  to  the  service  of  The  Chronicle,  and 
although  it  may  have  lacked  variety  or  any  conspicuous  success,  yet  in  this 
retrospect  there  is  the  satisfaction  of  work  done  honestly  and  well,  and  of 
having  had  a  share  in  the  building  up  of  a  great  American  newspaper. 


f 


Early  Day  Men 


20 


^ 


Early-Day  Men 

A  Record  of  Some  of  the  Achievements  of  The  Chronicle 

By   THOMAS    E.    FLYNN 


ONDERING  on  the  fact  that  The  Chronicle  has  reached 
its  fiftieth  anniversary  overwhelms  me  with  a  flood  of 
recollections,  and  out  of  the  glooming  shadows  of  the 
past  appear  many  once  familiar  faces  that  are  seen  no 
more  in  the  crowded  haunts  of  men.  The  thoughts  of 
the  journalistic  world,  concentrated  chiefly  on  things  of 
today  and  tomorrow,  seldom  turn  to  those  of  the  long 
ago.  Only  when  some  extraordinary  occurrence  stirs  the 
memory,  does  the  mind  of  a  busy  newspaper  man  concern  itself  deeply  with 
the  what-has-been.  Longfellow's  lines,  "Let  the  dead  past  bury  its  dead, 
act,  act  in  the  living  present,"  would  be  an  appropriate  motto  for  the 
editorial  rooms  of  every  live  newspaper. 

On  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  The  Chronicle,  however,  the  motto  would 
fail  to  check  a  retrospective  turn  of  the  thoughts  of  any  journalist  who  was 
connected  with  the  paper  in  its  earlier  struggles  for  recognition  and  success, 

CEASELESS    HIGH   PRESSURE    OF   NEWSPAPER   WORK 

Fifty  years  is  a  long  time  in  the  life  of  anything  human,  and  nothing 
devoid  of  flesh  and  blood  is  more  intensely  human  in  its  interest  and  pur- 
poses than  a  great  morning  newspaper.  Every  day  it  must  be  created  anew, 
and  it  dies  with  the  sunset.  The  creators  must  forever  toil  like  Sisyphus 
doomed  to  roll  his  huge  rock  to  the  summit  of  a  hill  only  to  see  it  return 
to  the  base  and  perpetuate  his  agony.  For  human  endeavor  at  ceaseless 
high  pressure  is  a  form  of  agony.  Call  it,  if  you  please,  a  labor  of  love, 
as,  indeed,  journalism  ever  continues  to  be  to  the  born  journalist,  but  the 
eupheanism  does  not  alter  the  fact  that  the  morning  newspaper  which  greets 
us  with  unfailing  regularity,  is  born  daily  of  an  unremitting  travail  of  mind 
and  body  unknown  in  any  other  form  of  human  enterprise. 

The  merchant,  the  farmer,  the  manufacturer — aye,  even  the  warring 
soldier — has  his  periods  of  relaxation ;  and  when  the  harvest  is  done,  or 
the  busy  commercial  season  is  ended,  or  peace  restored,  the  agriculturist 
and  the  trader  and  the  man  of  battles  make  up  in  grateful  relaxation  the 
waste  of  nervous  energy. 

But  the  newspaper  man  must  never  sleep  at  the  switch,  lest  the  train 
of  opportunity  go  thundering  by  and  leave  him  in  the  lurch.  Tn  his  eternal 
vigilance  for  news  he  must  emulate  the  many-headed  Cerberus,  watchdog 

207 


208  Journalism  in  California 

of  the  gates  of  Pluto,  who  took  even  his  noonday  naps  with  at  least  one 
eye  wide  open  and  fixed  on  business. 

In  the  newspaper  profession  a  man  may  toil  for  ten  years  to  establish 
a  good  reputation,  and  lose  it  all  in  one  night  by  some  accidental  slip,  for 
which  the  rigid  rules  of  discipline  hold  him  responsible.  Nothing  is  ac- 
counted so  worthy  of  commendation  on  a  live  newspaper,  and  succeeds  so 
well,  as  infallible  success  in  beating  the  hated  rival,  so  that  the  proprietor 
thereof  may  tear  his  hair  when  he  compares  botli  newspapers  over  his 
morning  coffee,  and,  if  of  unchristian  tendencies,  load  the  atmosphere 
with  language  not  set  forth  in  his  family  Bible.  Occasional  success  does 
not  succeed  in  journalism.     It  must  be  continuous. 

A   SUM   IN   MULTIPLICATION 

When  you  multiply  by  365  the  sum  of  the  mental  and  physical  effort 
embodied  in  one  issue  of  a  great  daily  newspaper,  you  obtain  an  idea  of 
what  a  single  year's  production  requires  in  expenditure  of  intellectual 
energy  as  well  as  physical  labor  and  hard  cash.  Multiply  that  again  by  the 
fifty  years  of  The  Chronicle's  existence  and  the  stupendousness  of  the 
figures  becomes  staggering  to  anyone  conversant  with  the  complicated  and 
costly  processes  of  modern  newspaper  publication. 

Not  one  man  in  a  thousand  who  founds  a  daily  newspaper  of  even  the 
least  importance  lives  to  see  the  fruition  of  his  hopes  and  plans  at  the  end 
of  half  a  century.  For  that  reason  Mr.  M.  H.  de  Young,  seated  at  his 
desk,  directing  all  the  departments  of  his  great  journal,  and  seemingly  as 
alert,  ambitious,  resourceful  and  progressive  as  when  I  first  saw  him  in 
the  earlier  stages  of  The  Chronicle's  existence,  is  to  me  an  amazing  example 
of  inexhaustible  mental  and  physical  force — in  a  word,  a  remarkable 
phenomenon  of  perpetual  motion. 

This  may  seem  extravagant  language,  but,  looking  at  the  proprietor 
of  The  Chronicle,  I  cannot  disassociate  him  in  my  mind  from  the  hundreds 
of  his  contemporaries  who  long  since  reached  their  ultimate  milestone. 
Some  of  them  dropped  by  the  wayside  before  they  approached  their  desti- 
nation, and  few  journeyed  to  the  end  with  anything  suggestive  of  the 
elasticity  and  unshaken  courage  of  their  vigorous  manhood. 

WHERE  ARE  THE   SNOWS   OF   YESTERYEAR? 

Where  are  all  those  old-time  publishers  whose  names  were  as  household 
words?  Where  be  the  host  of  clever  writers  of  those  bygone  days,  the  merry 
wits  of  Bohemia  whose  quips  and  cranks  so  often  set  the  table  in  a  roar? 
Where  be  the  grave  and  serious-minded  editors,  whose  incisive  pens  dis- 
dained the  tittle-tattle  of  the  hour  and  dealt  with  the  deeds  of  men  who  were 
making  history  ?     Where  are  the  snows  of  yesteryear  ? 

Of  many  more  I  might  ask  the  same 

That  are  but  dust  that  the  breezes  blow, 
But   I  desist,   for   none   may  claim 

To   stand   against    death,    that  lays    all   low. 

So  wrote  Francois  Villon,  who,  besides  being  a  fine  poet,  was  a  great 
scapegrace.  What  an  epic  could  have  flowed  from  the  pen  of  that  talented 
rascal  had  he  been  part  of  the  early  life  of  San  Francisco  in  which  The 
Chronicle  was  born  and  attained  its  virility !    What  a  field  for  the  exercise 


SCULPTURE  AT   THE   EXPOSITION:   THE    GENIUS  OF   CREATION, 
BY    DANIEL    CHESTER   FRENCH 


Some  of  Its  Achievements  209 

of  the  genius  of  a  Dickens,  observant  of  the  rapid  evolution  of  a  gokl-seeker's 
rendezvous  into  a  great  entrepot,  full  of  picturesque  adventures  from  the 
four  quarters  of  the  globe!  Seldom  has  there  been  such  a  heterogeneous 
collection  of  contending  forces. 

There  was  to  be  seen  in  sharp  contradistinction  the  culture  and  aristo- 
cratic class,  pride  of  the  old  Southern  planter  life,  arrayed  against  an  ag- 
gressive and  plebeian  democracy  recruited  from  the  farms  and  manufactur- 
ing centers  of  the  Atlantic  states  and  the  peasantry  of  Europe.  ]S"ew  Eng- 
land puritanism  and  thrift  struggled  uncompromisingly  with  the  forces  of 
riotous  pleasure  and  the  rampant  spirit  of  reckless  speculation  and  outright 
gambling. 

STRENUOUS  JOURNALISM   TO   THE   LIMIT 

In  the  early  days  when  The  Chronicle  began  to  be  recognized  as  a 
journalistic  influence  to  be  reckoned  with,  the  memory  of  the  vigilante  days 
was  comparatively  fresh  in  the  public  mind,  and  law  and  order  were  in 
control  of  the  community.  Nevertheless,  the  public  still  demanded  strenuous 
journalism  carried  to  the  full  limit,  and  if  a  little  in  excess  it  did  not  hurt 
the  publisher's  circulation.  The  personal  note  was  very  strong  in  jour- 
nalism, though  it  was  not  altogether  a  safe  or  wise  proceeding  to  express 
one's  full  detestation  of  a  hated  rival. 

The  code  of  honor  had  but  lately  beeii  in  full  force  and  effect  among 
gentlemen  in  California,  and  if  duelling  pistols  had  been  relegated  to  the 
junk  shops,  or  disposed  of  to  the  pawn  offices,  revolvers  and  derringers  that 
carried  ounce  bullets  were  plentiful.  To  ascribe  to  a  journalist  the  domi- 
nant characteristics  of  Ananias,  or  impugn  his  previous  record  for  honesty 
was  not  unlikely  to  call  forth  a  spirited  physical  protest,  more  effective 
than  a  double-leaded  editorial  reply  in  a  newspaper.  Occasional  clashes 
between  impetuous  knights  of  the  quill  were  a  source  of  great  perplexity 
to  Police  Judges,  who  then,  as  now,  preferred  to  hold  the  scales  of  justice 
so  evenly  that  nobody  of  influence  went  to  jail,  and  all  hands  helped  the 
eminent  jurist  at  the  next  election. 

Evidently  the  enterprising  management  of  the  Chronicle  was  eminently 
satisfactory  to  the  community,  for  the  paper  grew  in  circulation  and  adver- 
tising prosperity.  Youth  loves  to  be  iconoclastic,  and  the  pet  amusement 
of  the  young  Chronicle  was  to  smash  popular  idols  and  show  that  their  feet 
were  made  of  common  clay.  To  expose  cheats  of  any  kind  was  an  enter- 
prise in  which  proprietors  and  staff  joined  whole-heartedly. 

Among  the  characteristic  exploits  of  the  young  Chronicle  was  the 
unmasking  of  a  spiritualistic  fraurl,  who  had  mystified  and  deceived  the 
greater  part  of  the  English-speaking  world  which  was  then  intensely 
interested  in  occultism. 

One  of  The  Chronicle's  reporters  was  William  Laffan,  who  afterward 
became  a  metropolitan  publisher.  Laffan  conceived  the  idea  of  suddenly 
illuminating  the  hall  where  the  materializing  seances  were  given,  and 
M.  H.  de  Young  entered  heartily  into  the  plot.  All  the  paraphernalia  of 
exposure  having  been  prepared,  the  journalistic  conspirators  took  their 
places  in  various  parts  of  ^Piatt's  Hall.  As  usual,  the  spirits  were  energetic, 
and  ghostly  manifestations  set  the  hair  of  the  credulous  on  end.  Musical 
instruments  floated  above  them  and  the  air  seemed  overladen  with  spooks. 


210  Journalism  in  California 

CHRONICLE'S  EXPOSURE  OF  A  CHARLATAN 

At  the  psychological  moment,  the  signal  to  light  up  was  given,  and 
every  Chronicle  man  in  the  hall  touched  olf  his  magnesium  light,  illuminat- 
ing the  place  with  a  merciless  glare  that  j)ut  the  medium  out  of  business. 
The  charlatan  was  caught  with  the  goods  on  him,  for  the  lights  exposed 
the  fellow  as  he  stood  on  the  edge  of  the  stage  personating  his  stock  ghosts 
by  the  simplest  devices,  and  relying  on  the  superstitious  credulity  of  his 
audience  to  bamboozle  them. 

Next  day  The  Chronicle,  of  course,  made  the  most  of  the  expose,  and 
thus  deepened  the  growing  conviction  of  the  early-day  subscribers  that  they 
should  buy  the  new  paper,  and  keep  buying  it  if  they  wished  to  get 
the  news. 

I  could  write  many  pages  of  The  Chronicle  descriptive  of  reportorial 
exploits  that  kept  the  circulation  rising  like  the  thermometer  on  a  mid- 
summer day. 

Let  nobody  suppose  that  the  standards  of  literature  in  journalism  then 
were  such  as  any  noodle  could  hope  to  exceed.  Mark  Twain  had  not  long 
ceased  writing  for  The  Chronicle,  and  aspiring  humorists  were  expected  by 
such  ruthless  city  editors  as  Dennis  McCarthy,  S.  F.  Sutherland  and 
Tommie  Newcomb  to  endeavor  at  least  to  be  Twains.  What  a  task ! 
McCarthy  had  been  editor  of  the  Virginia  City  Enterprise,  where  Twain 
made  his  reputation,  and  had  slaughtered  reams  of  the  great  humorist's 
manuscripts  with  his  merciless  blue  pencil.  McCarthy  afterward  became 
managing  editor  of  The  Chronicle  prior  to  John  P.  Young's  appearance 
on  the  staff,  and  having  made  a  considerable  fortune  in  Comstock  mining 
shares,  bought  the  Virginia  City  Chronicle,  which  was  then  a  valuable 
property. 

FAMOUS   OLD-TIME   MANAGING   EDITOR 

Another  famous  old-time  managing  editor  of  The  Chronicle  \vhose 
familiar  face  I  recall,  was  John  Timmins.  Shaven  like  an  Episcopal 
minister  and  suggestive  in  appearance  and  manner  of  the  pulpit  rather  than 
the  editorial  chair,  John  Timmins  was  for  decades  the  Fidus  Achates  of 
Charles  and  M.  H.  de  Young,  until  he  was  induced  to  enter  the  service 
of  W.  R.  Hearst  as  managing  editor  of  the  Examiner. 

How  many  have  been  the  changes  in  the  personnel  of  The  Chronicle 
since  I  first  saw  John  Timmins  bending  over  his  editorial  desk  in  the  old 
office  on  Clay  street,  like  an  austere  clergyman  conning  his  notes  for  the 
next  sermon ! 

Men  have  come  and  men  have  gone,  changes  almost  cataclysmic  have 
occurred  in  San  Francisco,  but  throughout  all  the  mutations  of  time  and 
fortune  The  Chronicle  has  steadily  advanced  from  the  position  of  a 
journalistic  experiment  to  a  recognized  place  in  the  front  rank  of  the  great 
newspapers  of  America. 

In  those  days  the  standard  of  literature  had  been  set  by  Bret  Harte 
and  his  contemporaries.  They  composed  a  galaxy  which  so  far  has  not 
been  outshone.  Many  of  the  recognized  literary  men  of  the  early  days, 
including  Harte,  were  contributors  to  The  Chronicle. 


Some  of  Its  Achievements  211 


FAMOUS  CONTRIBUTORS  TO  THE  CHRONICLE 

San  Francisco  then  supported  a  purely  literary  weekly,  "The  Golden 
Era,"  which  was  edited  by  RoUin  M.  Daggett,  who  afterward  was  con- 
nected with  the  American  diplomatic  service.  Some  of  his  work  can 
be  found  in  the  old  files  of  The  Chronicle,  as  can  that  of  Joaquin  Miller, 
Charles  Warren  Stoddard,  and  other  literary  people  whose  reputations 
became  far  more  than  local.  It  would  take  a  page  of  The  Chronicle  to 
tell  of  the  literary  set  alone — of  Ina  Coolbrith,  Minnie  Myrtle  Miller, 
Anna  M.  Fitch,  Stephen  Massett,  Orpheus  C.  Kerr,  Prentice  Mulford, 
James  McDonough  Ford,  Gilbert  B.  Densmore,  Harry  McDowell.  The 
Chronicle,  ever  alert  for  valuable  contributors,  was  in  close  touch  with  all 
the  celebrities  of  the  day. 

At  that  period  San  Francisco  prided  itself  on  supporting  the  finest 
stock  company  in  America — the  old  California  Theater  aggregation,  headed 
by  John  McCullough,  the  famous  tragedian.  In  the  history  of  the 
American  stage  the  story  of  the  old  California  Theater  stock  company 
has  become  a  classic.  The  great  actors  of  the  world  appeared  in  the 
California  Theater  and  every  gallery  god  in  San  Francisco  knew  what 
Booth's  Hamlet  looked  like. 

THERE    WERE    GIANT    ARTISTS    IN    THOSE    DAYS 

There  were  painters,  too,  in  those  days,  whom  time  proved  to  be 
giants — Tom  Hill,  William  Keith,  Julian  Eix,  Jules  Tavernier  and  others 
whose  pictures  live. 

In  such  an  environment,  with  an  art  atmosphere  distinctly  developed, 
no  new  journal  could  hope  to  succeed  on  the  plane  of  frontier  or  provincial 
journalism.  Cleverness  was  an  essential  in  the  quality  of  the  matter  pre- 
sented to  the  reading  public,  and  The  Chronicle  bid  for  the  best  writers 
obtainable  in  New  York  as  well  as  in  San  Francisco.  Many  bright  men 
from  the  New  York  Sun  and  the  Herald  have  rendered  valuable  service  on 
The  Chronicle  staff,  and  helped  to  establish  a  metropolitan  standard.  One 
of  the  best  known  of  the  Sun  men  who  worked  for  The  Chronicle  for  sev- 
eral years  was  R.  D.  Bogart  who,  in  several  lines,  had  no  superior  on  any 
paper  in  the  country. 

As  early  as  1880  a  man  who  went  to  New  York  with  a-  record  of 
having  done  good  work  on  the  San  Francisco  Chronicle  could  get  an  en- 
gagement on  the  leading  metropolitan  newspapers.  Even  at  that  time  the 
California  contingent  had  made  a  name  for  San  Francisco  journalists, 
dramatists  and  actors.  The  Chronicle's  intimate  connection  with  New 
York  journalism  through  its  policy  of  employing  the  best  men  obtainable 
had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  making  the  California  invasion  so  successful. 

THE  BEGINNING   OF   THE  BOHEMIAN   CLUB 

In  recent  years  the  owner  of  the  New.  York  Sun  was  W.  M.  Laffan, 
the  same  Laffan  who  in  the  early  days  of  The  Chronicle  assisted  as  a 
reporter  in  the  exposure  of  the  spiritistic  fraud  in  old  Piatt's  Hall.  He 
went  to  Baltimore  early  in  the  'seventies  and  became  proprietor  of  the 
Baltimore  Daily  Sun.  When  the  younger  Dana  disposed  of  the  Sun 
Laffan  was  able  to  purchase  that  fine  property. 


212  Journalism  in  California 

On  the  Sun's  staff  in  recent  years,  as  foreign  correspondent,  was 
S.  F,  Sutherland,  who  was  second  city  editor  of  The  Chronicle.  Tommie 
Xewcomb,  who  conceived  the  idea  of  the  Bohemian  Club  of  San  Francisco, 
and,  in  conjunction  with  Dan  O'Connell,  founded  the  organization,  was 
the  first  city  editor  the  struggling  young  Chronicle  could  boast.  The  real 
birthplace  of  the  Bohemian  Club  was  the  first  Chronicle  office  in  the  loft 
on  Clay  street,  which  some  ingenious  carpenter  had  managed  to  partition 
into  the  semblance  of  up-to-date  editorial  rooms.  The  club  obtained  a 
habitation  and  a  name  when  Tommie  Newcomb,  Dan  O'Connell  and  other 
kindred  spirits  of  The  Chronicle's  small  staff,  rented  quarters  upstairs,  at 
the  corner  of  Sacramento  and  Webb  streets,  where  the  vista  included  a 
full  view  of  a  well-kiiown  undertaker's  shop,  with  the  coffins  in  the  win- 
dows. When  the  leading  lights  of  printers'  row  on  Clay  street  could  not 
be  found  anywhere  else,  it  was  safe  to  bet  that  an  X-ray  leveled  at  the 
corner  of  Sacramento  and  Webb  streets  would  have  revealed  tlicir  where- 
abouts. James  F.  Bowman,  a  literary  celebrity  of  the  early  days,  a  poet 
of  considerable  talent  as  well,  was  one  of  the  few  older  men  who  visited 
the  club.  Bowman  did  splendid  work  as  an  editorial  writer  on  The 
Chronicle,  and  preceded  Samuel  Seabough,  who  had  made  a  reputation 
upon  the  Sacramento  Union  as  the  greatest  of  California  editors. 

DIFFICULTY    OF    ESTABLISHING    A    DAILY    PAPER 

A  noteworthy  example  of  the  difficulty  of  establishing  a  daily  news- 
paper in  the  early  days  was  the  failure  of  the  Mail,  which  was  started 
to  assist  in  the  Senatorial  ambitions  of  Mark  McDonald,  an  affluent 
celebrity  of  the  mining  stock  market,  and  a  contemporary  of  Jim  Keene  of 
San  Francisco,  afterward  such  a  spectacular  figure  on  Wall  street. 

Mark  McDonald  evidently  had  money  to  burn,  for  he  not  only 
started  a  big  daily  newspaper,  but  helped  Dr.  Wade  to  build  the  Grand 
Opera-house  on  Mission  street,  where  Patti  and  other  famous  queens  of 
song  furnished  many  opportunities  to  the  wealth  and  fashion  of  San 
Francisco  to  wear  their  best  clothes. 

The  Chronicle  had  become  a  recognized  fixture  in  San  Francisco 
journalism  by  that  time,  but  nevertheless  M.  H.  de  Young  and  his  serious- 
minded  and  intensely  resolute  brother  Charles,  as  shrewd  publishers,  must 
have  looked  anxiously  at  the  new  Eichmond  in  the  journalistic  field.  The 
staff  of  the  ■Mail  included  men  who  had  done  good  work  on  The  Chronicle, 
but  the  enterprise  was  foredoomed  to  failure,  and  one  fine  day  the  Sheriff 
slapped  so  many  attachments  upon  the  paper  that  the  financial  props  col- 
lapsed. That  was  the  last  ambitious  effort  to  start  a  large  daily  newspaper 
in  San  Francisco, 

THE    CHRONICLE    DISTANCED    ALL   RIVALS 

The  Chronicle  tacitly  announced  to  the  people  of  San  Francisco  that 
it  had  distanced  all  its  rivals  when  it  abandoned  the  primitive  quarters 
down  on  Clay  street,  where  a  flickering  gaslight  struggled  to  illumine  the 
dingy  stairs  up  which  Mark  Twain,  Bret  Harte  and  many  literary  celeb- 
rities of  the  pioneer  cycle  had  many  times  climberl. 

The  new  home  of  The  Chronicle  in  its  substantial  four-story  building 


^ 


Some  of  Its  Achievements  213 

seemed  the  acme  of  journalistic  ambition,  but  almost  as  soon  as  the  building 
was  constructed  the  ever-busy  mind  of  M.  H.  de  Young  was  planning  to 
obtain  the  coveted  corner  on  which  The  Chronicle's  present  skyscraper  is 
situated,  at  Market  and  Kearny  streets. 

In  the  Kearny  and  Bush  street  office  I  met  many  clever  Chronicle 
men  who  distinguished  themselves  in  journalism — Ned  Townsend,  the 
creator  of  "Chimmie  Fadden,"  and  now  a  New  Jersey  Congressman; 
Harry  Dam,  afterward  private  secretary  for  Governor  George  Stoneman 
and  still  later  a  magazine  writer  and  London  correspondent  for  New  York 
papers;  Peter  Eobertson,  famous  as  a  dramatic  critic;  Thomas  Vivian, 
who  almost  became  a  really  great  short-story  writer;  Charles  Warren  Stod- 
dard, the  poet,  who  did  brilliant  special  work;  George  Hazelton,  Wash- 
ington correspondent,  who  developed  talent  as  a  financier  and  became  a 
street  railroad  magnate;  A.  B.  Henderson,  formerly  of  the  New  York 
Herald,  and  correspondent  of  The  Chronicle  on  the  expedition  headed  by 
the  late  Sheriff  Harry  Morse,  which  ended  the  pernicious  activities  of 
Tiburcio  Vasquez,  the  last  of  a  band  of  desperate  Mexican  bandits  and 
murderers;  John  Hamilton  Gilmour,  Frank  Bailey  Millard,  Hugh  Hume, 
afterward  proprietor  of  the  Post  and  now  publisher  of  the  Spectator  in 
Portland,  Oregon;  J.  Eoss  Jackson,  afterward  city  editor  of  the  Examiner 
and  famous  as  a  raconteur;  Horace  Hudson,  who  was  city  editor  of  The 
Chronicle  for  years  and  is  now  manager  of  the  estate  of  George  Hazel- 
ton;  "Bill"  Naughton,  who  became  a  famous  sporting  editor;  Arthur  H. 
Barendt,  afterward  president  of  the  Board  of  Health  and  shining  light  in 
the  legal  profession ;  R.  M.  Wood,  now  owner  of  several  thriving  class 
publications;  John  Bonner,  a  vigorous  editorial  writer  and  father  of  Ger- 
aldine  Bonner,  who  contributed  serial  novels  to  prominent  Eastern  pub- 
lications. 

While  I  was  connected  with  The  Chronicle  in  its  Kearny  and  Bush 
street  office  a  remarkable  experiment  in  journalism  was  tried  by  Fred 
Somers,  who  had  been  a  reporter  on  The  Chronicle  in  its  Clay  street  days 
before  Somers,  in  conjunction  with  Frank  Pixley,  who  was  editorial  writer 
for  The  Chronicle,  started  the  Argonaut.  Not  content  with  that  feat, 
Somers  launched  a  daily  called  the  Epigram,  which  depended  entirely  upon 
feuilletons  and  disdained  to  publish  the  news  of  the  day.  The  staff  of 
writers  included  Frank  Pixley,  Harry  Dam,  Ned  Townsend,  Dan  O'Con- 
nell,  Jerome  A.  Hart  and  myself.  The  experiment  was  a  distinct  failure 
and  the  financial  loss  caused  Somers  to  dispose  of  his  interest  in  the  Argo- 
naut and  go  to  New  York,  where  he  performed  the  remarkable  feat  of 
establishing  Current  Tj'terature  and  Short  Stories.  He  sul)se(|uently  pub- 
lished the  California  Magazine,  which  proved  an  unprofitable  venture. 

Altogether  the  list  of  Chronicle  writers  who  have  distinguished  them- 
selves in  journalism  and  literature  compares  favorably  with  that  of  any 
daily  paper  in  America. 

I  have  a  clear  recollection  of  the  building  of  The  Chronicle's  new 
home  at  Kearny  and  Bush  streets.  I  was  editing  the  Daily  Exchange, 
a  financial  journal  which  was  published  around  the  corner,  and  owned  by 
the  late  Colonel  John  P.  Jackson  and  D.  F.  Verdenal.  The  latter  had 
been  a  prominent  member  of  the  first  editorial  staff  of  The  Chronicle,  and 
in  comparatively  recent  years  was  New  York  correspondent. 


214  Journalism  in  California 

WHEN   RAPID   PRESSES  WERE  NOVELTIES 

Dan  OX'onnell  and  S.  F.  Sutherland  assisted  me  on  the  Daily 
Exchange,  and,  being  all  former  Chronicle  men,  we  were  much  interested 
in  watching  the  new  edifice  rise  from  the  deep  excavation  that  had  been 
dug  for  the  presses.    Eapid  presses  were  still  novelties  in  those  days. 

One  morning  when  passing  the  new  building  with  O'Connell,  I  saw 
Charles  and  M.  II.  de  Young  engaged  in  earnest  conversation,  while 
standing  on  the  joists  of  the  ground  tlcor  that  had  just  been  laid. 

"I'll  bet  they're  discussing  the  business  office  plans.  Let's  go  over 
and  talk  with   tiicni,"  said   O'Connell,  and   we  went. 

The  poet's  conjecture  was  right.  Not  only  did  we  learn  how  the 
business  office  was  to  be  laid  out,  but  we  got  a  comprehensive  idea  of  the 
whole  structure,  floor  by  floor.  Charles  de  Young,  though  quite  cordial 
and  frank  with  people  he  knew  and  liked,  was  never  as  communicative  or 
lively  in  disposition  as  his  brother,  and  the  latter  did  most  of  the  talking 
that  morning.  He  had  the  complete  plans  of  the  building  fixed  in  his 
mind,  and  the  new  features  that  he  thought  would  give  the  new  edifice 
distinction — the  expensive  onyx  counter,  suggestive  of  money  to  spare; 
the  massive  safe  behind  the  counter,  emblematic  of  solidity  and  satisfactory 
daily  profits;  the  proprietors'  luxurious  private  office,  the  elaborate  edi- 
torial department  upstairs,  with  rooms  for  special  writers,  managing  editor, 
city  editor  and  news  editor;  the  big  local  room,  tlie  composing  room, 
stereotyping  room,  and  the  library. 

THINGS    NOT    BEFORE    HEARD    OF 

Whoever  had  heard  of  a  library  and  a  librarian  before  in  pioneer 
journalism,  and  an  onyx  counter?  If  O'Connell  had  written  on  the  spur 
of  the  moment  one  of  his  celebrated  "City  Lyrics,"  descriptive  of  the  prob- 
able effects  of  The  Chronicle's  new  magnificence  on  the  rival  publishers 
who  still  adhered  to  pine  and  redwood  counters  and  primitive  environ- 
ments, it  would  have  been  a  gem  worth  preserving. 

M.  IL  de  Young  was  a  young  man  himself  in  those  days,  and  I  think 
he  must  have  lauglied  in  his  sleeve,  in  young  man  fashion,  at  the  thought 
of  his  contemporaries'  feelings  on  seeing  the  new  departure  in  journalistic 
extravagance  in    San   Fraiicisco. 

In  listening  that  morning  to  the  description  of  the  building,  and  ob- 
serving the  complete  acquiescence  of  the  two  brothers  in  the  business  plans, 
one  could  see  how  closely  the  men  were  drawn  together  by  the  ties  of 
business  ambition  and  consanguinity.  First  of  all  they  were  brothers,  and 
eeeondly  were  business  partners,  working  enthusiastically  and  in  full  accord, 

THE  TWO   YOUNG   PROPRIETORS    OF   THE   CHRONICLE 

Charles,  the  editor,  was  reserved  and  contemplative,  a  man  of  the 
quiet  sanctum,  more  disposed  to  earnest  thought  and  consultation  than  to 
untiring  business  activity.  M.  H.  de  Young  was  the  restless,  energetic, 
bustling  man  of  affairs,  full  of  novel  projects  and  happiest  in  exploiting 
new  fields  of  enterprise  and  overcoming  serious  and  sometimes  seemingly 
insurmountable  difficulties.  IIow  he  managed  to  overcome  some  of  them 
has  always  been  a  marvel  to  me,  who  have  known  the  inside  workings  of 


mi 


Some  of  Its  Achievements  215 

The  Chronicle  so  ■well,  for  at  some  critical  turns  in  the  earlier  history  of 
the  journal— not  to  mention  the  great  fire  of  1DU6 — there  was  recjuired 
for  the  directing  mind  of  the  newspaper  a  combination  of  forethought  and 
executive  talent  rarely  found  in  a  newspaper  or  any  other  office. 

Partnership  in  business  is  not  always  conducive  to  the  greatest  success, 
but  undoubtedly  the  partnership  of  Charles  and  M.  II.  de  Young  in  the 
early  days  was  most  beneficial  to  the  struggling  newspaper.  While  Charles 
was  engrossed  in  editorial  duties  within  doors,  his  younger  brother  was 
here,  there  and  everywhere,  at  public  meetings,  social  gatherings,  theaters, 
concerts,  constantly  studying,  planning  and  executing  schemes  to  increase 
the  circulation  and  advertising  patronage  of  his  newspaper.  The  untiring 
energy  of  the  two  brothers  made  the  combination  perfect,  and  to  that  fact 
I  have  always  ascribed  the  extraordinary  ra])i(lity  with  which  The  Chi'onicle, 
so  small  in  its  infancy,  obtained  a  footing  among  its  strong  and  prosperous 
contemporaries.  Eitlier  of  the  De  Young  brothers,  alone,  could  not  have 
laid  the  foundations  of  their  enterprise  so  quickly  and  well. 

FIRST    REQUISITE   IN   A   NEWSPAPER    OFFICE 

With  the  experience  of  many  years  of  writing  and  publishing,  I  have 
come  to  regard  business  talent  as  the  first  requisite  not  only  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  newspaper  but  for  all  stages  of  its  existence.  It  is  also  the 
most  difficult  to  obtain. 

Y'oung  writers  regard  the  business  office,  except  on  payday,  as  a  rather 
prosaic  superfluity,  and  think  that  the  space  given  to  advertisements  might 
be  more  profitably  utilized  by  their  brilliant  productions.  The  experienced 
publisher,  however,  has  no  illusions  about  the  relative  value  of  gems  of 
literature  and  business-getting  talent  as  essentials  to  newspaper  success. 
Both  are  invaluable  for  a  really  first-class  journal,  but  a  badly  written 
publication  under -a  clever  business  manager  will  live  and  perhaps  prosper 
Avhere  a  brilliantly  written  journal,  with  an  inefficient  business  manager, 
would  die. 

The  ideal  condition  is  M'here  the  editorial  and  the  business  depart- 
ments vie  in  excellence,  and  that  is  most  likely  to  be  found  under  one 
strong  executive  head,  notwithstanding  the  tenets  of  a  triumphant  democ- 
racy in  these  days  that  all  kinds  of  autocracies  are  pernicious. 

The  Chronicle  has  been  an  autocracy  during  all  the  years  since  M.  II. 
de  Y^oung  was  called  upon  to  assume  the  responsibility  of  sole  proprietor- 
ship. The  extent  of  The  Chronicle's  success,  during  the  thirty  years  of  its 
highest  prosperity,  is  the  measure  of  his  great  executive  ability.  When 
he  lost  the  invaluable  assistance  of  his  wonderfully  talented  brother,  it 
became  his  task  to  rebuild  The  Chronicle  on  new  lines  as  well  as  broad 
ones,  to  meet  the  requirements  of  an  ever-expanding  field.  The  Chronicle 
for  a  full  generation  has  been  solely  M.  H.  de  Young's  Chronicle.  I  am 
sure  that  when  the  history  of  California  journalism  shall  have  been  written 
by  some  competent  and  impartial  critic,  and  at  the  proper  perspective  of 
years  for  a  comprehensive  review  untinctured  by  personal  or  partisan  bias, 
it  will  be  recorded  that  The  Chronicle  lias  been  a  powerful  influence  for 
the  promotion  of  the  best  interests,  the  good  repute  and  the  prosperity  of 
the  great  city  where  it  is  published. 


The 

San  Francisco  Chronicle's 

Jubilee 


21 


The  San  Francisco  Chronicle's  Jubilee 


M.  H.  DE  Young  Felicitated  by  Prominent  Editors  upon  the  Com- 
pletion OF  Fifty  Years'  Continuous  Conduct  of  His  Paper 


VETERAN  PUBLISHER  OF  ST. 
PAUL  SENDS  FELICI- 
TATIONS 


George    Thompson    of    Noted    Dispatch 

and    Pioneer    Press    Congratulates 

M.  H.  de  Young  and  Coniuiuuity. 

1AM  in  some  doubt  whether  congrat- 
ulations should  properly  go  to  you 
and  The  San  Francisco  Chronicle  or 
to  the  California  community  in  whose 
progress  to  prosperity,  populousness 
and  wealth  you  and  The  Chronicle  have 
been  such  potential  factors.  So  I  give 
myself  the  benefit  of  the  doubt  and 
divide  my  felicitations  among  the  man, 
the  institution  and  the  city.  For  a  great 
newspaper  is  first  of  all   institutional. 

Give  me  to  read  the  leading  news- 
paper of  a  community  and  in  its  char- 
acter I  will  find  engraved  the  character 
of  the  cummunity.  In  my  judgment, 
your  half-century  of  endeavor  has  con- 
structed no  more  of  a  monument  in  The 
Chronicle  than  in  the  many  other  insti- 
tutions, the  civic  spirit  and  the  habit 
of  newspaper  thought  of  San  Francisco. 
I  wish  every  community  had  a  real- 
izing sense  of  its  obligations  to  the 
right-minded  newspaper,  which  holds 
its  character  as  the  virtue  of  a  woman 
and  faces  its  duty  with  the  courage  of 
conviction.  Fifty  years  of  association 
between  editor  and  community — some- 
thing not  given  often,  even  to  the  most 
fortunate  in  life — should  enable  each  to 
find  the  other  out.  A  half-century  of 
unintermitted  contact  outlives  the  last 
shadow  of  doubt  of  responsibility.  It 
is  both  significant  and  romantic  to  turn 
toward  the  setting  sun  to  find  the  only 
figure  in  American  journalism  which 
can  be  crowned  with  this  royal  dis- 
tinction. 

"Out  of  the  East  comes  light,"  says 
the  proverb.  "Out  of  the  West  comes 
service,"  I  would  add.  From  a  long 
life  broidered  by  the  lights  and  mel- 
lowed by  the  shades  of  newspaper  ac- 
tivities, I  am  able  to  draw  the  powers 
of  appreciation  which  qualify  me  to 
congratulate  you.  The  Chronicle  and 
San  Francisco  upon  the  event  cele- 
brated by  your  Jubilee  anniversary. 
GEORGE  THOMPSON. 


"AN  EVENT  OF  INTEREST,"  SAYS 
ST.  LOUIS  REPUBLIC  OWNER 


Charles    W.    Knapp    of    Great    Missouri 

Newspaper,    Himself    in     Harness 

Forty-eight  Years. 

THE  fiftieth  anniversary  of  The  San 
Francisco  Chronicle  is  an  event  of 
much  interest  to  me  because  my 
personal  acquaintance  with  the  De 
Young  brothers,  who  founded  the 
paper,  began  within  seven  years  after 
the  first  issue  of  the  Dramatic  Chron- 
icle. I  have  not  only  been  able  to 
follow  by  direct  observation  the  won- 
derful development  from  that  small 
beginning  to  the  great  public  journal 
that  now  constitutes  one  of  the  most 
potent  forces  in  the  newspaper  field, 
but  in  this  forty-three-year  period  I 
have  been  situated  to  know  how  com- 
pletely Charles  de  Young,  up  to  his  un- 
timely death,  and  M.  H.  de  Young, 
during  the  whole  half-century  of  The 
Chronicle's  existence,  were  its  inspira- 
tion and  moving  force. 

Fifty  years  is  a  long  time  to  be  con- 
nected with  a  single  newspaper.  I  am 
conscious  of  that  fact,  as  I  began  my 
own  newspaper  work  forty-eight  years 
ago  and  have  never  worked  for  any 
newspaper  except  the  one  I  began  with. 
My  uncle,  who  died  in  18S3,  had  a  record 
of  fifty-six  years  on  the  same  news- 
paper, and  forty-nine  of  those  years  he 
was  an  owner  and  manager,  while  my 
father,  who  came  into  the  business  at 
a  later  date,  rounded  out  a  full  third 
of  a  century.  This  personal  experience 
enables  me  to  appreciate  in  an  unusual 
degree  the  remarkable  record  of  M.  H. 
de  Young. 

Let  me  tender  congratulations  to 
both  The  Chronicle  and  to  Mr.  de  Young, 
since  they  are  due  to  both.  For  The 
Chronicle  they  are  offered  because  it 
has  become  the  great  paper  it  is,  not 
merely  by  growing  as  the  city  in  which 
it  is  published  has  grown,  but  on  ac- 
count of  the  individuality  and  the  force 
that  are  peculiarly  the  De  Young  char- 
acteristic, which  have  contributed  so 
much  to  make  the  city  as  well  as  the 
newspaper.  For  M.  H.  de  Young  my 
congratulations   are    offered    because    it 


219 


220 


Journalism  in  California 


has  seldom  happened  that  a  founder  of 
a  newspaper  has  been  preserved  in 
health  and  vigor  to  attend  as  sole 
owner  its  golden  jubilee. 

The  Chronicle  has  had  hard  knocks 
in  the  long  years  of  its  aggressive 
existence  and  it  took  much  strenuous, 
courageous  work  to  make  it  the  power 
in  the  community  it  became  long  ago, 
but  that  is  the  only  way  a  newspaper 
can  progress  to  public  influence  and 
financial  success.  Because  the  De 
Young  nature  was  especially  fitted  for 
just  such  battling  as  The  Chronicle  had 
throughout  the  early  tempestuous  years 
of  its  career  it  has  remained  a  De 
Young  property  and  stands  today  an 
enduring  De  Young  monument.  Yours 
very   truly,  CHAS.   W.   KNAPP, 

President  the  St.  Louis  Republic. 


CHICAGO  TRIBUNE  WRITES 

CAREER  REFLECTS 

HISTORY 


Editors  of  "The  ^Vorld's  Greatest  News- 
paper"  Send   lutere-stins   Letter 
to  M.  H.  de  Young. 

THE  editors  of  The  Chicago  Tribune 
extend      their      congratulations     to 
you    and    The    Chronicle    upon    the 
occasion   of   the   fiftieth   anniversary  of 
your  editorship. 

Few  newspapers  in  this  country  of 
perpetual  movement  can  boast  a  half 
century  of  successful  management 
under  one  directing  mind.  It  has  been 
a  w^onderful  and  inspiring  period  which 
The  Chronicle  has  been  privileged  to 
reflect  and  be  a  part  of,  and  no  com- 
munity on  the  continent  has  been  better 
worth  expressing,  as  a  vital  newspaper 
is  able  to  express  the  city  from  which 
it  springs,  than  San   Francisco. 

From  the  city  of  Bret  Harte  to  the 
great  metropolis  of  the  Panama-Pacific 
International  Exposition  your  com- 
munity has  contributed  an  intensely 
vivid  page  to  American  history,  a  page 
full  of  light  and  shadow  and  inspiring 
to  all  the  American  sisterhood  of  cities 
because  of  the  indomitable  spirit  which 
has  carried  San  Francisco  always  for- 
ward through  the  most  terrible  of 
ordeals  and  through  many  lesser  trials 
to  new  achievement  on  the  road  of 
progress.      Very   truly   yours, 

THE   CHICAGO   TRIBUNE. 


STRIKING  AND  EXCEPTIONAL, 
SAYS  HARRISON  GRAY  ' 
OTIS 


Publisher    of    Big    Los    Angeles    Ne^fS- 

paper    Says    Record    of    Chroniele 

Is   Notable   Aehievenient. 

I  AM  struck  by  the  showing  The  San 
Francisco  Chronicle  has  made  under 
the  De  Young  brothers.  The  truth 
is  I  did  not  before  quite  appreciate 
the  striking,  significant  and  exceptional 
fact  that  The  Chronicle  and  Mr.  M.  H. 
de  Young,   its  present   sole   owner,   are 


qualified  to  jointly  celebrate  the  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  this  conspicuous  jour- 
nal's foundation. 

Fifty  years  of  journalisnr  in  Califor- 
nia, a  State  not  yet  old,  convey  to  the 
mind  a  meaning  far  above  and  beyond 
the  ordinary,  when  it  comes  to  the  con- 
sideration of  journalism,  journalists 
and  a  commonwealth  whose  lives  cover 
that  pregnant  span  in  the  life  of  the 
Nation. 

So  far  as  I  am  aware,  none  of  the 
great  men  who  have  figured  in  the 
history  of  journalism  in  this  country, 
other  than  Mr.  de  Young,  have  rounded 
out  fifty  years  in  the  active  manage- 
ment of  a  newspat)er  in  the  United 
States.  During  that  long  and  sometimes 
turbulent  period  the  man  at  the  helm 
had  neither  time  nor  opportunity  to 
recline  "on  downy  beds  of  ease"  for 
any  considerable  number  of  hours  in 
each  twenty-four. 

I  congratulate  The  Chronicle  and  Mr. 
de  Young  on  the  coming  of  the  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  the  journal  itself  and 
upon  the  fact  that  Mr.  de  Young  him- 
self is  still  on  deck.     Yours  truly, 

HARRISON   GRAY  OTIS. 


EDITOR  OF  SEATTLE  TIMES  SAYS 
EVENT  UNPRECEDENTED 


Head    of    Family    of    Editors    Compares 

M.  H.  de  Young's  Achievements 

AVith  Those  of  Other  Editors. 

ON  January  16,  1915,  a  most  remark- 
able occurrence  will  take  place  in 
the  journalistic  field  of  the  Pacific 
Coast  and  one  to  be  remembered  by  the 
newspaper  fraternity  throughout  the 
land. 

On  that  day  Hon.  M.  H.  de  Young  will 
celebrate  his  fiftieth  anniversary  as  a 
journalist,  and  The  San  Francisco 
Chronicle  at  the  same  time  will  cele- 
brate its  fiftieth  anniversary. 

The  coincidence  occurs  by  reason  of 
the  fact  that  Mr.  de  Young  was  one  of 
the  founders  of  The  Chronicle,  and  yet 
Mr.  de  Young  had  had  no  newspaper 
experience  when  he  and  his  brother 
Charles  established  The  Chronicle. 

To  be  sure,  it  began  in  a  very  humble 
way  as  a  small  publication,  both  in  size 
and  circulation,  and  took  ample  time  to 
develop. 

While  several  leading  journalists  of 
the  United  States  during  its  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-six  years  of  history 
have  served  on  newspapers  now  more 
than  fifty  years  old,  there  is  no  other 
living  editor  who  has  served  on  the 
same  paper  for  half  a  century,  except 
M.  H.  de  Young  of  San  Francisco. 

James  Gordon  Bennett  founded  The 
New  York  Herald  in  1S35,  and,  although 
The  Herald  is  in  its  sixty-third  year, 
James  Gordon  Bennett,  Sr.,  died  in  1S72, 
having  relinquished  the  immediate 
management  of  The  Herald  to  his  sen 
several  years  before. 

Mr.  James  Gordon  Bennett,  Jr.,  now 
in  his  seventy-fourth  year,  has  been  in 
exclusive  charge  of  The  New  York 
Herald    but    forty-two    years,    or    eight 


The  Chronicle's  Jubilee 


221 


years  less  than  Mr.  de  Young  has  been 
in  charge  of  The  Chronicle. 

Horace  Greeley  founded  The  New 
York  Tribune  in  1S41,  and  while  The 
Tribune  today  is  over  seventy-three 
years  of  age,  Horace  Greeley  severed 
his  connection  therewith  in  1S72,  serv- 
ing but  thirty-one  years  with  the  news- 
paper he  established. 

Henry  Watterson  has  been  the  editor 
of  The  Louisville  Courier-Journal  for 
more  than  forty-six  years,  and  as  The 
Courier-Journal  has  been  in  charge  of 
it  all  that  time.  Still  The  Courier- 
Journal  is  a  consolidation  of  two  former 
papers  that  were  published  many  years 
before  Henry  Watterson  became  the 
editor  of  the  combine. 

As  a  journalist,  Henry  Watterson, 
now  seventy-four  years  of  age,  has  been 
in  the  journalistic  field  considerably 
more  than  fifty  years,  but  lacks  that 
distinction  of  being  with  the  same 
newspaper  for  half  a  century. 

Mr.  Samuel  Bowles  founded  The 
Springfield  (Mass.)  Republican  in  1844, 
and  was  its  editor  until  his  death  in 
1S7S,  but  while  The  Springfield  Repub- 
lican is  more  than  seventy  years  of 
age,  Samuel  Bowles,  Jr.,  has  had  con- 
trol for  many  years,  taking  charge 
thereof  at  his  father's  death. 

The  late  Col.  Harvey  Scott,  who  died 
at  seventy-two,  was  the  editor  of  The 
Oregonian  for  a  period  of  almost  half 
a  century,  although  The  Oregonian  was 
taken  over  by  Mr.  H.  L.  Pittock  in  1860 
and  Mr.  Pittock  has  been  the  manager 
thereof  since  that  date. 

General  Otis  of  Tlie  Los  Angeles 
Times  was  in  the  Civil  War  fifty  years 
ago  today  and  had  not  thought  of  enter- 
ing the  journalistic  field.  In  spite  of 
that  fact,  however,  he  has  been  in 
charge  of  The  Los  Angeles  Times  for 
nearly  forty  years  and  the  identity  of 
The  Times  and  General  Otis  and  Gen- 
eral Otis  and  The  Times  is  so  complete 
that  the  name  of  the  one  means  the 
other. 

But  We  might  refer  to  the  biographi- 
cal histories  of  a  dozen  other  men  in  the 
United  States  who  have  passed  the 
main  portion  of  their  lives  in  the 
journalistic  field  and  yet  never  reached 
the  point  that  has  been  reached  by  Mr. 
de  Young. 

Mr.  de  Young  and  The  San  Francisco 
Chronicle  stand  out  today  absolutely 
unclouded  in  the  bright  sunshine  of 
success  and  prosperity  as  the  only 
living  editor  who  founded  a  newspaper 
fifty  years  ago,  which  newspaper  to- 
day is  stronger  than  it  ever  was  before. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  speak  of  the 
splendid  financial  success  which  has 
for  many  years  characterized  The  San 
Francisco  Chronicle,  for  the  world 
knows  all  about  it. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  speak  of  the 
splendid  enterprises  which  have  taken 
up  the  great  portion  of  Mr.  de  Young's 
time  of  a  state,  national  and  even  inter- 
national character,  for  the  world 
knows  all  about  his  work  therein. 

It  is  only  necessary  at  this  time  to 
call  attention  to  the  uniqueness  of  the 
situation  and  to  remember  that  Mr.   de 


Young  is  in  possession  of  his  full 
strength  and  powers,  as  competent 
today  to  carry  on  Tlie  Chronicle  as  he 
ever  was,  and  that  The  Chronicle  itself 
is  a  greater  newspaper  today  than  it 
ever  was  before,  and  one  of  the  very 
few  great  newspapers  of  the  world. 
ALDEN   J.    BLETHEN. 


HARTFORD  COURANT   WISHES 

"MANY    HAPPY    NEW 

YEARS" 


Charles  Hopkins  Clark,  Editor  of  Con- 
necticut's   Foremost    Daily,    Is 
Cordial  in  Greetings. 

THE    Hartford    Courant,    which    has 
recently    celebrated    its    one    hun- 
dred   and     fiftieth    birthday    anni- 
versary   sends    cordial     greetings    and 
hearty     congratulations     to     The     San 
Francisco  Chronicle. 

It's  a  great  thing  for  a  newspaper  to 
be  fifty  years  old.  We've  tried  it  three 
times,  and  ought  to  know.  But,  while 
the  Courant's  experience  in  this  is 
unique,  that  of  The  Chronicle  is  unique, 
too,  and  perhaps  more  remarkable,  in 
that  the  same  man  who  established  The 
Chronicle,  Hon.  M.  H.  de  Young,  is  still 
at  its  head,  and,  from  a  small  begin- 
ning, has  built  up  and  still  controls  a 
newspaper  known  all  over  the  country, 
one  of  the  potent  factors  in  Pacific 
Coast    life. 

The  oldest  newspaper  makes  its  bow 
and   wishes   many   happy  new   years   to 
the    oldest     founder,     editor    and    pub- 
lisher.    Mav  he  long  stay  on   his  job. 
THE   HARTFORD   COURANT. 
By  Charles  Hopkins  Clark,   Editor. 


PROVIDENCE    JOURNAL    HEAD    IS 
CHRONICLE    "GRADUATE" 


John   R.   Rathoni.    Kdit4»r   of   Stroni; 

Rhode  Island   Publication,  Tells 

of   His    Satisfaction. 

THE  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the 
founding  of  The  San  Francisco 
Chronicle  and  of  Mr.  M.  H.  de 
Young's  entry  into  journalism  is  an 
event  that  will  be  recognized  with 
genuine  pleasure  not  only  in  California, 
but  throughout  the  United  States. 

This  anniversary  will  also  be  greeted 
with  much  more  than  ordinary  satis- 
faction by  the  hundreds  of  newspaper 
men  in  the  East  and  West,  who,  like 
myself,  have  graduated  from  The 
Chronicle. 

The  life  of  The  Chronicle  has  been 
no  parlor  game.  Nobody  but  Mr.  de 
Young  himself,  who  for  fifty  years  has 
been  The  Chronicle,  can  fully  realize 
the  strenuous  character  of  its  career 
or  recall  with  such  completeness  of 
detail  its  thousand  and  one  struggles' 
for  or  against  the  innumerable  ques- 
tions that  have  been  fought  out  in 
California  in  the  past  half-century.  It 
gives  one  genuine  happiness,  however, 
to  look  back  upon  his  own  period  of  a 
few  years  of  intimate  connection  with 
The     Chronicle     and     to     realize     that 


>)00 


Journalism  in  California 


during  the  whole  of  that  time  his  ef- 
forts, under  the  direction  of  Mr.  de 
Young-  and  Mr.  Young,  both  of  them 
happily  on  deck  today,  were  devoted 
constantly  to  fighting  graft,  exposing 
corruption  in  high  places  and  low 
places  and  helping  every  worthy  object 
in  the  city  of  San  Francisco  and  the 
State  of  California. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  the  same  spirit 
that  led  the  young  men  of  those  happy 
days  is  the  spirit  that  survives  at  this 
time.  And  I  am  sure  that  though  The 
Chronicle  in  its  long  and  vigorous 
career  has  torn  down  many  shams, 
wrecked  many  a  political  ambition  and 
seriously  disconcerted  the  plans  of 
many  public  men,  there  will  be  a  uni- 
versal feeling  of  satisfaction  over  this 
anniversary,  extending  even  to  its  past 
or  present  enemies. 

JOHN    R.    RATHOM. 


EDITOR   OF    THE    OMAHA   BEE 

WISHES   CONTINUED 

SUCCESS 


Yictor  Ro.sewater  Tells  How  His  Father 

Worked   in    Years    (ione   by   With 

SI.    H.    de    Young;. 

TO  me  it  is  a  rare  privilege  to  be 
able  to  extend  greetings  and  felici- 
tations to  The  Chronicle  and  to 
Mr.  M.  H.  de  Young  on  their  joint 
completion  of  fifty  years  in  active 
newspaper  work.  I  couple  with  my 
congratulations  best  wishes  for  long 
continued  usefulness,  although  it  goes 
without  saying  that  The  Chronicle,  as 
a  successful  and  progressive  news- 
paper, must  outlive  its  founder  who 
has  given  it  a  permanence  no  indi- 
vidual can  possess. 

The  Chronicle  dates  back  a  little 
over  seven  years  longer  than  the  Bee. 
The  founder  of  the  Bee,  my  father,  the 
late  Edward  Rosewater,  who  was  inti- 
mately associated  with  Mr.  de  Young 
in  many  public  movements,  was  per- 
mitted to  guide  its  destinies  contin- 
uously for  thirty-five  years,  which  we 
felt  was  making  a  notable  record  in 
journalism;  and  yet  to  have  held  the 
reins  for  an  even  half  century,  as  has 
Mr.  de  Young  with  The  Chronicle,  is 
much  more  exceptional.  Everyone  who 
knows  anything  about  journalism 
knows  that  such  an  achievement  would 
be  impossible  without  brains,  brawn, 
bravery    and   business   ability. 

VICTOR    ROSEWATER. 


WONDERFUL   GROWTH    IS   SEEN 
BY  NEW  YORK  GLOBE 


Jason    Roj^ers,    Publisher    of   Paper 

Founded    in    ITO.*?.    Appreciates 

Chronicle's    Influence. 

PERMIT    me     to    heartily     congratu- 
late   you    and    The    San    Francisco 
Chronicle  on   reaching  your  fiftieth 
anniversary    together.      There    must    be 
a    strong    feeling   of   personal    satisfac- 
tion   in    having    been    so    long    identi- 


fied with  so  influential  a  paper  as  The 
San  Francisco  Chronicle,  which  has  so 
successfully  promoted  and  supported 
the  best  interests  of  San  Francisco, 
the  gateway  of  the  Orient  from  the 
United  States. 

The  wonderful  growth  and  influence 
of  the  San  Francisco  Chronicle  are  ac- 
knowledged and  appreciated  by  news- 
paper men  throughout  the  country.  Its 
commanding  position  as  one  of  the 
great  newspapers  of  the  United  States, 
developed  from  a  very  small  beginning 
by  you  and  your  brother  since  1865, 
should  be  abundant  satisfaction  for  the 
lifetime   efforts   of  any   individual. 

As  publisher  of  the  New  York  Globe, 
which  is  the  oldest  daily  newspaper  in 
the  United  States,  founded  in  1793  by 
Noah  Webster,  I  extend  to  you  my 
heartiest  congratulations  and  best 
wishes  for  future  success  and  pros- 
perity. JASON     ROGERS. 


BUFFALO    TIMES  EDITOR   IS 

VOLUBLE    IN    HIS 

PRAISES 


IVornian    E.    Mack,    Owner    of    Famous 

Publication,'  Says    Chronicle    Is 

a  Familiar  Visitor. 

PERMIT  me  to  extend  congratula- 
tions as  The  Chronicle  passes  in 
triumph  its  half-century  mark. 
Most  people  are  happy  in  the  thought 
of  one's  own  life  and  health  at  fifty, 
so  it  must,  indeed,  be  a  pleasure  to 
view  the  creation  of  your  own  intel- 
lect, courage  and  labor  as  it  rounds 
fifty  years  of  continued  progress  in  a 
splendid  burst  of  brilliant  achievement. 

The  best  years  of  your  life  have  been 
given  over,  through  the  columns  of 
The  Chronicle,  to  the  service  of  the 
people  of  your  city,  your  State  and  the 
Nation.  Yours  has  been  a  rare  period 
of  service.  But  out  of  your  life,  and 
that  of  your  distinguished  brother,  you 
have  reared  an  institution  which  will 
go  on  and  on  in  the  great  work  you 
started  as  generation  follows  gener- 
ation. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  have  this  oppor- 
tunity to  look  back  upon  the  success 
and  the  achievements  of  The  San  Fran- 
cisco Chronicle.  Here  we  are,  you  and 
I,  at  the  extreme  ends  of  the  continent, 
yet  The  Chronicle  is  as  familiar  a 
visitor  in  my  office  as  my  nearest 
neighbor  in  Buffalo.  For  years  your 
great  newspaper  has  been  a  source  of 
enlightenment,  entertainment  and  in- 
spiration. No  one  can  read  The  Chron- 
icle without  being  impressed  with  its 
fairness,  its  force,  its  intelligent  direc- 
tion, its  typographical  excellence,  its 
devotion  to  the  public  welfare,  its 
courage  and   its  completeness. 

To  you,  Editor  de  Young,  permit  me 
to  convey  assurances  of  my  congratu- 
lations on  the  golden  anniversary  of 
your  newspaper  service,  to  extend  my 
cordial  wishes  for  the  future,  and  to 
join  with  the  multitude  of  your  friends 


i 


The  Chronicle's  Jubilee 


223 


in    celebrating    this    fifty-year    triumph 
of  The   Chronicle. 

I  expect  in  the  very  near  future  to 
visit  with  other  members  of  the  New 
York  State  Commission,  your  great  In- 
ternational Exposition  and  will  then 
look  your  splendid  city  and  State  over 
and  I  have  no  doubt  we  shall  all  leave 
for  our  homes  at  the  conclusion  of  that 
visit  with  the  greatest  admiration  for 
the  Golden  Gate  and  its  people. 

Very  cordially  yours, 

NORMAN   E.   MACK. 


FRIENDS   ARE  LEGION,   WRITES 
BUFFALO  NEWS  PRO- 
PRIETOR 


DES  MOINES  CAPITAL  PUBLISHER 
SUGGESTS  BOOK 


Lafayette      Youtis      of      Leading      Iov*a 

Ne^v.spaper     Harilly     Realizes     The 

Cbronic-le  Is  Fifty  Years  Old. 

IT   HARDLY   seems   possible    that   the 
San     Francisco     Chronicle     is     fifty 
years  of  age!     I  have  met  M.  H.  de 
Young     several     times,     and    he     never 
looked  old  to  me.     But  such  men  do  not 
grow   old. 

How  lonesome  it  must  have  been  in 
1865,  when  the  De  Young  brothers 
sprung  The  Chronicle  on  the  new  city 
on  the  golden  shore!  Mr.  de  Young 
ought  to  write  a  book  giving  a  chron- 
icle of  his  experience  in  assisting  the 
new  West  in  doing  things,  for  he  has 
always  been  a  leader.  He  is  one  of  the 
great  editors  of  America,  where  great 
editors  abound.  It  is  a  pleasure  to 
congratulate  him.  He  has  stood  the 
storm;  has  never  succumbed  to  hurried 
partnerships  nor  stock  companies.  He 
has  evidently  been  a  single-purposed 
man.  Yet,  when  I  read  his  history,  I 
find  he  has  been  an  all-around  man  in 
directing  many  things.  Such  a  life  is 
worth  living,  and  the  establishment  of 
The    Chronicle    Is   achievement   enough. 

I   extend   my   congratulations. 

LAFAYETTE  YOUNG. 


SPOKANE  SPOKESMAN-REVIEW 
SENDS  ITS  CONGRATU- 
LATIONS 

W.  H.  Cowles,  Publisher  of  Big  Wash- 

Ing'ton  Newspaper,  Lauds  M.  H. 

de   Young's    Efforts. 

I    WANT  to  congratulate  Mr.  de  Young 
very   heartily   on   the   celebration    of 
the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  foun- 
dation of  The  Chronicle. 

The  Chronicle  has  preserved  for  a 
very  long  life  a  strong  hold  on  the 
most  substantial  people  in  San  Fran- 
cisco. It  has  been  conducted  with  a 
remarkable  mixture  of  wise  conserva- 
tism and  aggressive  constructive  work. 
There  are  only  a  few  publishers  in 
the  United  States  whose  names  are  as 
well  known  from  one  end  of  the 
country  to  ithe  other  as  M.  H.  de 
Young's.  His  great  success  has  been 
due  not  only  to  his  large  ability,  but 
also  to  an  astounding  energy  and  cour- 
age.    Sincerely  yours, 

W.  H.  COWLES. 


Edward     H.    Butler    of     IVor^hern     New 
York's  Big  Newspaper  Says  San  Fran- 
cisco and  Chronicle  Are  Synonyms. 

ALLOW  me  to  congratulate  you 
upon  your  fiftieth  anniversary  as 
head  and  founder  of  The  San 
Francisco  Chronicle.  I  know  of  no 
one  who  is  more  of  a  success  in  the 
newspaper  world  than  yourself;  always 
having  before  you  the  interest  of  your 
own  city,  and  it  is  well  known  through- 
out the  newspaper  world  that  Mr.  M. 
H.  de  Young  has  done  more  for  San 
Francisco  by  his  untiring  efforts  in  its 
behalf  than  almost  any  other  man  in 
that  city. 

I  wish  I  might  be  there  to  personally 
congratulate  you,  but  as  that  is  im- 
possible I  am  sending  this  letter,  w^hich 
will  be  only  one  among  many  from 
your  friends,  who  are  legion. 

The  San  Francisco  Chronicle  is 
synonymous  with  the  word  San  Fran- 
cisco, and  one  never  thinks  of  that 
city  without  connecting  with  it  The 
Chronicle,  the  same  as  Atlanta  and  the 
Constitution,  and  Springfield,  Mass., 
and  the  Republican,  and  I  trust  that 
The  Chronicle  may  continue  in  its  suc- 
cess, and  that  I  shall  be  able  to  con- 
gratulate you  on  its  seventy-fifth  an- 
niversary.     Sincerely   your  friend, 

EDWARD    H.    BUTLER. 


VETERAN  AT  HELM  OF  THE  ORE- 
GONIAN  EXTENDS  HAND 


"Congratulations,"    Says    H.    L.    Pittock 

of   Portland,    Himself    Old    in 

"The  Game." 

1HAVE  known  The  San  Francisco 
Chronicle  well  during  the  entire 
fifty  years  of  its  publication  as  a 
daily  newspaper.  I  recall  clearly  its 
early  days,  when  it  began  to  make  a 
real  impression  upon  the  California 
public,  and  I  have  watched  its  develop- 
ment into  a  great  metropolitan  news- 
paper, with  real  interest  and  real  sym- 
pathy. 

I  think  that  Mr.  de  Young  is  the  only 
American  publisher,  except  myself, 
who  has  been  at  the  head  of  an  im- 
portant newspaper  continuously  for 
more  than  a  half-century.  In  that  re- 
spect, therefore,  there  is  a  striking 
parallel  in  the  history  of  The  Chronicle 
and  of  my  own  newspaper.  It  is  proper 
for  me  to  say  that  after  eight  years  of 
service  as  printer  and  publisher  on  the 
Weekly  Oregonian  I  founded  the  Daily 
Oregonian  on  February  4th,  1861,  and 
have  been  its  publisher  continuously 
from  the  beginning. 

I  congratulate  Mr.  de  Young  upon  his 
great  accomplishment  in  building  up 
so  influential  and  well-organized  a 
newspaper  as  The  Chronicle.  The 
Chronicle  in  a  peculiar  way  typifies 
San  Francisco.  Its  news  methods  are 
a  reflection  of  the  bright  spirit  of  the 
city,   while   its   editorial   methods,   con- 


224 


Journalism  in  California 


servative  and  thorough  as  they  are,  are 
an  index  of  the  real  stability  of  the 
Coast  metropolis.  The  Chronicle  has 
had  its  vicissitudes,  undoubtedly,  but  it 
has  survived  them  splendidly.  It  is  an 
institution  in  San  Francisco  and  Cali- 
fornia. 

For  myself,  I  cannot  conceive  of  San 
Francisco  without  The  Chronicle,  and 
I  thoroughly  believe  that  the  time  will 
not  come  when  there  will  be  such  a 
San  Francisco. 

H.   L.   PITTOCK, 
Publisher  The  Oregonian. 


PUBLISHER  OF  NEW  YORK  WORLD 
DEFINES  SUCCESS 


Don    C.    Seitz,    Head    of    Great    E^astern 

Ne-»vspaper,  Tells  Secret  of 

Chronicle  Progress. 

THE  Chronicle  will  live  in  history 
as  one  of  the  great  enterprises  of 
American  journalism.  The  the- 
atrical leaflet  became  a  newspaper 
because  of  the  unquenchable  instinct 
of  Charles  and  M.  H.  de  Young,  who 
had  in  them  the  quality  which  makes 
papers,  the  ability  to  endure  persecu- 
tion, to  withstand  unpopularity,  to 
print  the  news  without  fear  or  favor, 
no  matter  what  danger  might  ensue. 
The  Chronicle  had  to  fight  its  way.  It 
broke  the  road  for  Pacific  Coast  jour- 
nalism. 

Let  us  hope  its  next  fifty  years  will 
be  smooth  and  prosperous,  and  that  it 
will  remain  what  it  has  now  become, 
an  institution,  as  all  newspapers  ought 
to  be. 

DON   C.   SEITZ. 


CHRONICLE  AN  INSTITUTION, 

WRITES  SAMUEL  A 

PERKINS 


Owner  of  the  Perkins  Press,  Operating 

Six   Northwestern   Newspapers, 

Comments  on  Achievement. 

I    AM     extending     congratulations     to 
The   San   Francisco  Chronicle   on   its 
being   fifty  years   old,   but   more   ap- 
propriately,   I    am    happy    to    say    that 
The  Chronicle  is  fifty  years  young,  and 
so  is  the  publisher. 

Fifty  years  under  the  same  owner- 
ship and  management  is  a  proud  dis- 
tinction rarely,  if  ever,  achieved  in 
American  journalism. 

The  San  Francisco  Chronicle  has  been 


a  "live  issue"  and  M.  H.  de  Young  has 
been  a  live  wire  throughout  a  half- 
century  of  marvelous  development  of 
California  and  the  Pacific  Coast,  and 
The  Chronicle  and  its  publisher  have 
had  a  large  part  in  that  development. 
A  newspaper  like  The  Chronicle, 
which  has  paid  its  way  and  has  been 
built  from  the  ground  up  on  its  earn- 
ings, is  an  institution  in  the  best  sense 
of  the  ■word. 

S.    A.    PERKINS. 


KEELEY    OF    THE    HERALD    IS 

LOOKING    TO    DIAMOND 

JUBILEE 


Kditor  of  Chicago's  Latest  Combination 

Newspaper  Says  He  Feels 

Like    a    Tyro. 

HALF  a  century  of  success  is  a 
record  of  which  you  and  The  San 
Francisco  Chronicle  should  feel 
proud  and  I  extend  my  felicitations. 
Somehow  with  that  record  before  me 
I  feel  like  a  tyro,  for  the  paper  is  older 
than  I  am  and  yet  I  overheard  some 
one  in  the  office  call  me  "the  old  man" 
the    other    day. 

I  hope  the  career  of  The  Chronicle 
is  only  starting  and  that  I  shall  have 
the  pleasure  of  further  congratulating 
you  and  The  Chronicle  on  your  diamond 
jubilee. 

J.  KEELEY. 


ENERGY  IS  ENORMOUS,  WRITES 

CHICAGO    JOURNAL 

PUBLISHER 


John  C.  l^astman  of  Great  Illinois  Dally 

Says   Achievement    Unlikely   to 

Be   Duplicated. 

PLEASE  accept  my  heartiest  con- 
gratulations on  your  Chronicle 
jubilee.  The  amount  of  energy 
and  endurance  implied  in  managing  a 
great  newspaper  for  half  a  century 
is  enormous.  It  is  pretty  clear  that 
you  and  The  Chronicle  do  not  get  on 
each  other's  nerves. 

You  have  had  many  remarkable  men 
in  The  Chronicle  office;  probably  have 
some  there  now  whom  the  future  will 
recognize  as  remarkable;  but  no 
achievement  of  your  staff,  past,  present 
or  to  come,  is  less  likely  to  be  dupli- 
cated than  your  own.  Very  truly  yours, 
JOHN  C.   EASTMAN. 


Pacific  Coast 

and 
Exposition 
Biographies 


\  \  \ 

r  <    ■  ■ 


Great  Men  and  Great  Men's  Achievements 

Form    the    Background    for 

Cahfornia's  Progress 


VERY  man  living  in  a  civilized  community  is  one  of 
two  things — he  is  a  good  citizen  or  he  is  not  a  good 
citizen.  Not  all  the  good  citizens,  in  the  true  sense  of 
the  term,  are  those  who  do  not  break  the  laws;  nor,  in- 
versely, are  all  the  bad  citizens  those  whose  names  are 
written  on  the  rolls  of  our  jails  and  penitentiaries. 

A  man,  to  be  a  really  good  citizen,  must  put  back  into 
the  commonwealth  something  for  that  which  he  takes 
out  of  it.  In  return  for  the  right  to  live  and  prosper  he  must  give  his 
active  or  moral  support  toward  building  up  that  commonwealth  and  making 
it  better. 

The  one  who  allows  "the  other  fellow"  to  do  more  than  his  share  of 
work  for  the  general  good  is  shirking  his  bounden  duties.  The  result : 
He  is  not  taking  advantage  of  the  opportunity  to  make  himself  a  good 
citizen.  And  the  mere  fact  that  he  has  succeeded  in  keeping  out  of  jail  does 
not  make  him  necessarily  "good."  His  city,  his  State  and  his  country  de- 
mand more. 

Looking  over  the  history  of  San  Francisco  and  California  there  is  one 
thing  that  impresses  the  reader  above  everything  else.  This  is  the  spirit 
of  a  comparatively  small  number  of  men  who,  ever  since  "the  days  of  old, 
the  days  of  gold,  the  days  of  forty-nine,"  have  stood  in  the  forefront  in 
public  achievement. 

California  has  needed  such  men  as  few  other  States  in  the  Union  have 
needed  them.  Separated  from  the  "effete  East"  by  two  mountain  ranges 
as  California  is,  its  development  was  late  in  beginning.  When  the  tide 
of  civilization  did  turn  westward  it  brought,  naturally  enough,  some  of 
the  rougher  element  with  it.  But  it  brought  also  those  who  had  the  making 
of  stanch,  fearless  citizens. 

It  is  the  old  rule  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest  that  has  been  worked 
out  since  those  days  of  clipper  ships  and  the  Cape  Horn  passage.  Today 
California  stands  in  the  front  rank  of  progressive  and  enlightened  com- 
munities, fairly  teeming  with  culture  and  happiness  and  blessed  with  a 
prosperity  famed  the  world  over. 

It  is  a  Great  Western  Empire  in  itself ! 

Not  in  one  business  or  profession  alone  will  one  find  those  builders 
of  the  commonwealth.  They  are  to  be  met  in  every  walk  of  life — more 
in  some,  perhaps,  than  in  others,  yet  in  all  of  them.  It  is  the  scheme  of 
things  worldly  that  one  pursuit  should  fit  into  and  supplement  another. 

227 


228  Introduction  to   Biographies 

No  one  man  can  accomplish  everything  necessary  to  promote  civilization — 
and  no  one  man  has  done  so. 

In  the  pages  that  follow  in  this  work  are  set  forth  in  detail  the  careers 
of  some  of  the  most  representative  men  of  the  West,  engaged  in  all  lines 
of  endeavor.  To  the  aspiring  young  man  each  sketch  holds  out  a  distinct 
lesson.  In  each  it  is  endeavored  to  show  by  what  processes  the  subject 
has  reached  that  glittering  goal — Success. 

Simmered  down,  the  secret  is  found  in  the  five  words — Intelligence, 
Ambition,  Pluck,  Application  and  Perseverance. 

With  those  five  qualifications  a  man  is  bound  to  succeed  in  nearly  any- 
thing to  which  he  bends  his  efforts.  Obstacles  he  brushes  aside  or  sur- 
mounts; apparent  failure  means  nothing  to  him  but  a  renewal  of  effort; 
he  leaves  complaining  and  lamenting  to  the  less  hardy  and  makes  action 
count. 

Among  the  very  first  Americans  to  land  on  the  shores  of  San  Francisco 
Bay  were  the  miners.  They  came  by  way  of  Cape  Horn.  The  community 
was  then  decidedly  Spanish  and  the  footsteps  of  the  padres  were  still  com- 
paratively fresh.  On  January  24,  1848,  James  W.  Marshall  made  his 
momentous  discovery  of  gold  in  the  tailrace  of  Sutter's  mill,  on  the  north 
fork  of  the  American  river  where  Coloma  now  stands.  After  several  months 
the  news  filtered  East  in  a  roundabout  way  and  the  famous  '49  rush  began. 

Most  of  the  incoming  Argonauts  did  not  tarry  long  in  San  Francisco. 
This  was  merely  an  outfitting  point,  and  they  continued  on  up  the  Sac- 
ramento river  by  boat,  and  then  by  horse  or  wagon  or  afoot  to  the  fields 
of  wealth.  This  city  being  an  outfitting  point,  it  of  course  needed  out- 
fitters. These  came  with  the  miners,  saw  what  fortunes  might  be  garnered 
without  digging  with  pick  and  shovel,  and  forthwith  took  advantage  of 
the  opportunity  to  establish  themselves  in  a  mercantile  business. 

Where  gold  is  in  abundance,  there  is  the  lodestone  to  attract  settlers. 
And  San  Francisco  and  California  were  no  exception  to  the  rule.  Soon 
shiploads  of  people  began  literally  pouring  in  through  the  Golden  Gate, 
They  represented  all  classes,  all  minds.  Some  remained  in  the  city,  which 
was  spring  ing  up  on  the  sand  dunes  by  the  water's  edge  with  a  mushroom- 
like  growth ;  some  went  on.  And  soon  the  raw  gold  was  coming  back  to 
the  mart  of  trade  in  ever-increasing  shipments. 

Soon  there  were,  in  addition  to  the  traders,  lawyers  and  doctors,  bankers 
and  school  teachers,  to  say  nothing  of  agriculturists,  lumbermen,  cattlemen 
and  engineers.  The  city  of  San  Francisco,  clustered  as  it  was  at  first 
around  the  waterfront,  began  to  broaden  out.  One  sand  dune  after 
another  was  surmounted  and  the  tide  of  civilization  swept  on  to  the  next. 
With  the  opening  of  the  route  across  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  vessels  began 
making  regular  trips  into  port,  and  the  problem  of  transporting  goods 
diminished  in  importance.  Then,  as  the  decades  rolled  on,  there  followed 
the  stage  lines  and  the  pony  express,  and  at  length  the  first  transcontinental 
railroad.  And  each  added  stability  to  the  empire  that  was  springing  up 
west  of  the  Sierra  mountains. 

The  medical  men  helped  along  the  scheme  of  things  by  guarding  the 
health  of  the  settlers.  Early  physicians  rode  about  from  mining  camp  to 
mining  camp  with  their  kits  of  drugs  slung  across  their  backs  or  thrust  into 
their  saddle-bags,  ready  for  anything  from  a  capital  operation  to  the  birth 
of  another  soul.     Quiet,  unassuming  and  brave,  the  doctors  did  their  work 


Introduction  to   Biographies  229 

and  went  their  way,  and  mankind  was  the  better  for  them.  The  doctor 
of  today  is  not  just  like  the  doctor  of  yesterday.  He  is  more  of  a  special- 
ist, if  not  entirely  so.  And  he  knows  more  than  physicians  even  dreamed 
of  in  the  days  of  '49. 

In  its  mining  activities  California  has  had  three  sets  of  pioneers.  First 
came  the  crude  form  of  placer  mining,  wherein  the  "cream"  of  the  gold 
deposits  was  washed  from  the  beds  of  the  mountain  streams  and  from  the 
gravel  of  the  valleys,  where  search  was  made  for  natural  "pockets"  from 
which  a  fortune  could  be  taken  in  a  few  hours  or  a  few  days.  Then  a 
period  of  rest  from  the  feverish  excitement  and  the  gradual  decay  of  those 
historic  old  settlements,  painted  in  enduring  words  with  such  a  sure  hand 
by  Bret  Harte,  followed  by  the  quartz  miners  and  their  less  picturesque 
and  more  businesslike  work  among  the  vast  mineral  deposits  of  the  State. 
Finally,  not  so  many  years  ago,  there  came  to  the  public  notice  the  per- 
fection of  a  new  system  of  gold  dredging,  higlily  profitable.  San  Francisco 
and  California  have  many  mining  operators  and  engineers  today  whose  repu- 
tation is  country-wide,  and  whose  operations  involve  millions.  The  careers 
of  most  of  them  read  like  a  book  of  romance. 

Agriculturally,  California,  with  its  40,000,000  acres  of  arable  lands, 
can  be  surpassed  by  no  other  State  in  the  Union.  Its  early-day  grazing 
pastures  and  a  great  many  of  its  forests  have  given  way  to  blossoming 
fields,  and  its  rangers  and  vaqueros  have  largely  been  replaced  by  the  man 
with  the  hoe.  The  old  Spanish  land  grants  of  thousands  of  varas  have  been 
cut  up  into  smaller  tracts  and  men  are  getting  rich  on  from  five  to  ten 
acres.  Here  might  be  mentioned  Captain  Sutter,  one  of  the  first  to  discover 
and  put  to  advantage  the  agricultural  and  horticultural  possibilities  of  the 
Sacramento  Valley,  and  who  was  involuntarily  responsible,  by  reason  of 
the  existence  of  his  mill,  for  the  discovery  of  gold  by  Marshall. 

The  cattle  business  has  by  no  means  been  throttled,  nor  is  the  State 
behind  hand  in  dairying  and  poultry  and  produce  raising.  Here  enter  in 
the  exporters  of  the  State's  commodities,  men  whose  ships  carry  California 
goods  to  remote  corners  of  the  world.  Sailing  vessels  have  in  most  cases 
given  way  to  steam,  and  no  longer  does  the  mariner  lie  hove-to  waiting  for 
a  favorable  breeze.  Today  fleets  of  oil  steamers  also  are  constantly  leaving 
California's  seaports,  carrying  the  product,  crude  and  refined,  to  foreign 
markets.  In  the  State's  fields  well  after  well  is  being  sunk  to  increase 
the  output  and  millions  untold  are  invested  in  this  industry  alone;  com- 
petition is  keen  and  the  result  has  been  that  vast  sums  are  kept  in  circula- 
tion, to  add  to  the  wealth  of  the  community  and  of  its  industrial  leaders. 

Into  the  forest  primeval  came  the  woodsman  with  his  ax.  He  had 
worked  his  way  westward  clear  across  the  continent,  had  crossed  the  Eockies 
and  the  Sierra,  and  now  he  descended  upon  the  pines  and  redwoods  of 
California.  Soon  log  rafts  began  floating  down  the  rivers  or  were  towed 
down  the  coast,  and  mills,  springing  up  overnight,  turned  out  finished  lum- 
ber at  an  ever-increasing  rate.  An  industry  was  thus  started  which  since 
has  grown  into  huge  proportions  and  has  extended  itself  all  over  the  Pacific 
Coast.  And,  as  in  the  case  of  other  lines  of  endeavor,  the  burden  of  this 
development  has  fallen  upon  the  shoulders  of  a  few  big  men,  who  have 
devoted  money  and  energy  toward  blazing  the  trail. 

California  would  not  have  all  its  great  power  plants,  its  network  of 
railroads,  its  steel  and  concrete  bridges,  its  tunnels  and  its  aqueducts,  were 


230  Introduction  to   Biographies 

it  not  for  its  engineers  and  promoters — and  financiers.  A  liost  of  these 
pathfinders  have  placed  their  marks  upon  the  industries  and  their  develop- 
ment, men  whose  names  are  watchwords  for  scientific  progress. 

Without  capital  one  may  accomplish  but  little.  All  the  big  enterprises 
that  aid  in  a  community's  upbuikling  needs  must  have  financial  backing. 
It  is  therefore  no  small  part  that  the  bankers  of  California  have  played 
in  molding  its  history  and  furthering  its  commercial  and  industrial  growth. 
The  early-day  bankers  started  in  just  like  all  their  fellow-immigrants,  with 
dingy  offices  and  small  capital.  Gold  dust  flowed  into  their  coffers,  how- 
ever, as  the  miners  returned  with  their  earnings,  and  gradually,  as  more 
trade  routes  were  opened  up  with  the  East,  business  began  to  boom. 
William  H.  Crocker,  Frank  B.  Anderson  and  I.  W.  Hellman  are  typical 
of  the  strong,  resourceful  bankers  and  capitalists  of  today. 

Manufacturers,  contractors,  brokers,  architects,  accountants — all  these 
have  helped  make  many  things  possible,  as  have  the  oil  and  gas  interests 
and  the  men  behind  them;  the  insurance  interests,  which  protect  against 
poverty  after  death  for  the  family  left  behind  and  against  loss  from  fire 
or  storm  or  shipwreck  at  sea,  and  whose  business  on  the  Pacific  Coast  alone 
runs  away  up  into  the  millions  annually;  and  the  educators,  who  have 
waged  unceasing  warfare  against  ignorance. 

California's  public  school  system  cannot  be  excelled.  Back  through 
the  byways  in  every  direction  the  educators  have  gone  to  establish  their 
centers  of  learning.  With  three  big  universities,  dozens  of  colleges,  and 
other  institutions  where  one  may  specialize  in  any  subject,  the  State  has 
worked  its  way  up  into  the  forefront  in  cutting  down  the  percentage  of 
illiteracy.  No  one  with  strength  and  determination  need  today  remain 
untutored  and  untrained. 

As  the  years  pass  by  the  auto  manufacturers  and  dealers  come  to  be 
a  bigger  and  bigger  factor  in  every  business  community.  It  was  not  so 
many  years  ago  that  the  public  scoffed  at  those  who  promised  to  make  a 
"no  pushee,  no  pullee"  vehicle  that  could  be  adapted  to  general  or  individual 
needs.  We  scoffed  at  aeroplanes  and  dirigibles,  too,  but  they  all  have  taken 
their  places  in  our  daily  life.  The  automobile  business  is  now  one  of  the 
biggest  in  the  world;  yet  it  is  still  in  its  infancy.  The  electric  or  gasoline- 
propelled  car  has  ceased  to  be  a  plaything,  a  toy;  it  is  a  public  utility. 

Look  in  what  direction  one  will,  one  sees  sturdy  men  on  whose  broad 
backs,  as  it  were,  the  world  is  resting.  In  every  branch  of  human  endeavor 
they  are  to  be  found.  Their  success  has  been  due  to  personal  effort,  backed 
by  the  laudable  ambition  to  leave  mediocrity  behind  and  become  of  the 
forceful  few.  TTow  diversified  are  the  careers  of,  for  instance,  inventors, 
builders  of  the  telephone  and  telegraph,  officers  of  the  Army  and  ISTavy, 
sales  agents  and  managers,  public  executives  and  legislators !  Then  we 
find  the  artists,  the  musicians  and  the  writers  appealing  to  our  aesthetic 
side,  furnishing  us  with  the  finer  things  of  life. 

The  Panama-Pacific  International  Exposition  of  1915,  San  Francisco's 
great  world-show,  which  this  volume  helps  to  commemorate,  was  not  the 
work  of  an  Aladdin  and  his  Lamp,  even  though  its  gorgeousness  might  have 
appeared  so. 

The  history  of  the  exposition,  like  the  history  of  San  Francisco  and 
California  or  of  any  other  State  or  community,  large  or  small,  embodies 
a  succession  of  personal  achievements.    It  is  as  if  the  exposition,  in  all  its 


Introduction  to  Biographies  231 

splendor  of  yaried  beauty,  a  beauty  unsurpassed,  were  built  up  as  a  piece 
of  coral  is  built  up — one  particle  upon  another  particle  and  the  whole 
cemented  together,  with  each  human  insect  adding  his  mite  for  the  good 
of  all. 

Let  men  band  together  and  they  can  accomplish  anything. 

Finally,  the  story  swings  around  to  the  legal  fraternity  and  the  part 
it  has  played  in  this  drama  of  a  State's  advancement.  And  the  part  has 
been  an  important  one.  In  many  ways  it  is  the  most  interesting  record  of 
all,  for  it  reflects  every  other  phase  of  endeavor,  bringing  out  into  bold 
relief  the  high-lights  of  California's  absorbing  history. 

No  civilization  can  exist  without  laws  to  govern  it.  This  fact  was  early 
recognized,  here  and  elsewhere.  The  ancients  inscribed  certain  ''rules  for 
conduct"  on  stones,  setting  them  up  along  the  principal  highways  that  the 
public  might  memorize  them.  These  "rules"  were  the  forerunners  of  the 
law.  Written  later  on  parchment,  they  came  down  through  the  ages,  and 
aside  from  certain  radical  changes  consistent  with  the  needs  of  the  times, 
some  of  the  world-old  princij^les  are  still  in  force  as  the  basis  for  the  codes 
and  statutes  of  later  years. 

Man's  almost  every  passion  involves  in  some  way  the  prescribed  "rules 
for  conduct."  His  liberty,  property  rights  and  bequests,  his  aims  and  his 
controversies,  run  along  in  keeping  with  the  law  or  afoul  of  it  at  every 
stage.  He  must  do  certain  things,  and  he  must  not  do  certain  other  things, 
lest  he  cause  society  in  some  way  to  suffer.  This  society,  the  coalition  of 
mankind,  is  built  up  along  certain  lines  of  the  greatest  known  perfection. 
To  go  outside  these  lines  were  to  undermine  everything;  so  he  who  would 
go  outside  tliem  is,  in  one  way  or  another,  restricted  or  punished. 

Xo  profession  has  developed  and  brought  forth  more  great  and  influen- 
tial men  than  has  the  law.  In  every  Avalk  of  life  the  attorney  wields  his 
power — through  the  courts.  He  makes  the  statutes,  he  interprets  them, 
and  he  oftentimes  directs  the  men  who  apply  them.  He  is  an  entire  library 
of  sociology,  civics  and  economics  personified.  The  tools  of  his  trade,  as 
it  is  pointed  out  in  Bishop's  First  Book  of  the  Law,  constitute  the  power 
that  pervades  and  controls  the  universe. 

California's  brilliant  lawyers  are  legion.  Their  names  are  still  as  fa- 
miliar as  are  those  of  Patrick  Henry,  Robert  IngersoU  and  Daniel  Webster. 
They  range  from  the  brilliant  Justice  Stephen  J,  Field  and  Elisha  0. 
Crosby,  the  latter  of  Avhom  helped  introduce  into  California  the  English 
common  law  to  replace  the  civil  law  of  Eoman  origin,  down  through  the 
line  of  Hall  McAllister  and  Samuel  M.  Wilson,  two  of  the  greatest  prac- 
titioners of  their  day;  Thomas  B.  Bishop,  one  of  the  original  directors 
of  the  Hastings  College  of  Law;  Eeuben  H.  Lloyd,  noted  for  his  general 
cleverness;  General  William  H.  L.  Barnes,  he  of  the  astounding  eloquence, 
and  Creed  Haymond,  "Father  of  the  California  Codes,"  down  to  the  strong 
la\^7ers  of  the  present  day,  such  as  Charles  S.  Wheeler,  Alex.  F.  Morrison, 
Peter  F.  Dunne,  Garrett  McEnerney,  Gavin  Mc^^ab,  Victor  H.  Metcalf, 
Judge  Harmon  Bell,  R.  M.  Fitzgerald,  Curtis  Lindley,  E.  S.  Pillsbury, 
E.  J.  McCutchen,  Nathan  H.  Frank,  John  S.  Partridge,  M.  C.  Chapman 
and  William  C.  Crittenden,  besides  those  whose  careers  are  treated  at 
greater  length  hereafter. 

To  relate  at  all  chronologically  the  legal  history  of  California,  or  that 
part  of  it  made  up  of  the  so-called  "high-lights,"  one  is  obliged  to  barken 

22 


232  Introduction  to   Biographies 

back  to  the  establishment  of  the  missions  here  in  the  eighteenth  century — 
for  a  beginning.  The  padres  set  themselves  up  in  the  then  little  known 
Xorthern  California  at  about  the  time  Independence  Bell  was  pealing  forth 
its  defiance  to  King  George.  Mission  Dolores  was  consecrated  June  29, 
1776;  a  few  months  later,  January  12,  1777,  Santa  Clara  mission  was 
founded,  and  in  the  same  year  the  town  of  San  Jose,  near  by,  came  into 
being.  These  dates  are  of  interest,  particularly  that  of  the  founding  of 
San  Jose,  for  this  was  the  first  authorized  settlement  in  the  State,  receiving 
its  authorization  from  Governor  Felipe  de  Neve,  and  the  first  town  in 
California  to  be  ruled  by  a  civil  government. 

Prior  to  this,  California  was  a  part  of  New  Spain,  having  the  Viceroy 
of  Mexico  for  its  governing  power.  In  1776  it  was  attached  to  the  Coman- 
dancia-General  of  the  internal  provinces,  but  a  few  years  later  reverted 
again  to  the  Viceroy,  The  laws  were  made  by  the  King  of  Spain  and  his 
council  at  Madrid,  transmitted  to  the  Viceroy  and  finally  to  the  Governor. 
All  over  California  presidios  had  been  established,  and  couriers  carried  the 
orders  from  the  Governor  to  the  officers  in  command  of  these  posts. 

That  period  in  which  California  was  under  Spanish  rule  was  one  of 
the  most  picturesque  in  its  history.  When  Mexico,  after  a  fierce  struggle 
with  the  mother  country,  won  her  independence  in  1822,  Alta  California, 
as  it  was  then  known,  was  for  a  time  apparently  forgotten.  Without  courts, 
the  district's  legal  controversies  were  adjudicated  by  an  ecclesiastical  body 
ruled  over  by  Padre  Jose  Sanchez,  then  president  of  the  missions.  In  the 
latter  part  of  1836  Mexico  made  a  new  set  of  laws  whereby  the  alcaldes 
were  given  jurisdiction  in  certain  civil  cases.  Subsequently  these  officials 
held  direct  rule  under  a  Governor,  the  last  of  which,  appointed  for  Cali- 
fornia by  Mexico,  was  Pio  Pico,  a  highly  respected  executive. 

Meanwhile,  Americans  had  begun  to  drift  into  the  territory  and  take 
up  their  residence,  and  when  the  United  States  went  to  war  with  Mexico 
a  military  governor  for  California  was  named.  The  first  of  these  was 
Colonel  Richard  B.  Mason,  whose  term  of  office  extended  from  May  31, 
1847,  through  the  following  year  when  California  was  ceded  to  the  United 
States,  until  April  13,  1849. 

It  remained  for  General  Bennett  Riley,  who  succeeded  Colonel  Mason 
as  Governor,  to  establish  what  was  the  nucleus  of  our  present  judicial 
system.  By  proclamation  on  June  3,  1849,  Governor  Riley  called  for  the 
election  of  a  Superior  Court  of  four  judges  and  a  fiscal  or  Attorney-General, 
a  Judge  of  the  first  instance  for  each  district.  Alcaldes  and  Justices  of  the 
Peace.  In  August  of  the  same  year  John  W.  Geary  was  chosen  first  Alcalde 
of  San  Francisco.  Peter  II.  Burnett,  Pacificus  Ord,  Lewis  Dent  and  Jose  M. 
Covarrubias  were  made  Superior  Judges,  and  Frederick  Billings  was  ap- 
pointed fiscal. 

One  of  the  minor  Judges,  with  civil  jurisdiction  only,  was  the  eccentric 
William  B.  Almond,  who  held  sway  in  San  Francisco.  Judge  Almond  had 
no  regular  courtroom  at  first  and  he  often  was  obliged  to  hold  his  sessions 
outdoors,  sometimes  in  the  rain.  It  is  told  of  him  that  he  allowed  only 
thirty  minutes  for  a  trial,  and  once  he  had  set  his  mind  on  a  decision, 
attorneys  might  as  well  hold  their  peace,  for  no  amount  of  argument  would 
swerve  him  in  the  slightest. 

Governor  Riley's  judicial  system  was  the  outcome  of  a  series  of  events 
that  took  place  in  San  Francisco  about  the  beginning  of  1849.     This  was 


Introduction  to   Biographies  233 

the  formation  by  the  citizens  of  what  they  chose  to  term  the  "Legislative 
Assembly,"  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  a  new  form  of  civil  government 
for  this  district.  The  motives  of  the  fifteen  men  who  constituted  the  as- 
sembly were  conceded  to  be  conspicuously  upright,  although  their  authority 
was  not  recognized.  Magistrates  and  other  officials  were  named  and  plans 
were  made  for  the  calling  of  a  constitutional  convention.  But  at  this  junc- 
ture Governor  Eiley  came  forward  with  his  project  for  creating  a  judiciary 
and,  after  some  hesitation,  the  citizen  body  fell  into  line,  then  gradually 
declined  in  power  until  it  disbanded. 

The  really  epochal  change  in  the  legal  system  of  California  came  with 
the  gold  rush  of  '49.  The  Argonauts  found  upon  their  arrival  here  a 
peculiar  combination  of  old  customs  and  new.  Americanized  as  the  State 
was  just  beginning  to  appear,  there  still  remained  in  places  the  Spanish 
atmosphere.  Legislative  enactment  was  needed,  and  before  long  it  was 
secured.  But  for  the  time  being  the  courts  were  "drumhead"  affairs  of 
the  rough-and-ready  sort.  San  Francisco  was  the  Mecca  for  the  immigrants, 
and  here  all  the  complexities  of  the  early-day  life  were  reflected.  Hides 
were  in  general  circulation  as  a  medium  of  exchange. 

When  civilization  opens  up  new  pathways  there  go  lawyers,  and  the 
stampede  toward  California  was  no  exception  to  the  rule.  Lawyers  came 
aplenty — stern,  hardy  individuals  who  were  destined  to  go  down  through 
the  years  as  molders  of  a  new  empire's  government.  Their  lives  were  little 
different  from  those  of  the  miners,  for  they  were  inured  to  hardships,  against 
which  they  were  forced  to  struggle  unceasingly. 

These  were  the  days  in  which  some  of  California's  most  noted  lawyers 
got  their  start.  For  instance,  Stephen  J.  Field,  who  was  largely  responsible 
for  the  establishment  of  old  mining  customs  as  the  laws  of  the  State,  the 
founding  of  community  property  and  the  development  of  the  Code  of  Civil 
Procedure  later  on.  He  stands  out  conspicuously  for  his  position  on  the 
Supreme  Court  bench  of  the  United  States  as  well  as  for  his  historic  quarrel 
with  Justice  David  S.  Terry,  who  later  was  assassinated. 

The  first  session  of  the  State  Legislature,  which  convened  December  21, 
1849,  started  in  to  develop  the  legal  system  and  make  it  adequate  for  the 
public  needs.  Peter  H.  Burnett,  who  came  here  from  Tennessee  and  shortly 
afterward  became  Governor,  pointed  out  the  workings  of  the  civil  law  in 
the  South  and  suggested  that  California  adopt  a  similar  code,  made  up  of 
a  combination  of  the  common  law  of  England,  the  English  laws  of  evidence 
and  commerce,  the  civil  law  of  Louisiana  and  the  Louisiana  Code  of  Practice. 

There  was  strenuous  objection  to  such  a  suggestion.  The  majority  of 
the  San  Francisco  bar,  then  numbering  about  a  hundred  members,  favored 
the  common  law.  Finally  the  English  law  was  modified  and  transformed 
into  the  "American  Common  Law,"  and  on  April  12,  1850,  it  went  into 
effect  as  the  "fundamental  unwritten  law  of  California." 

But  meanwhile  the  State  had  been  provided  with  a  constitution,  ratified 
in  November,  1849,  and  one  that  has  since  called  forth  much  praise  for 
the  sturdy  citizens  that  drafted  it.  The  judicial  system  was  defined  and 
a  supreme  court,  district,  county  and  probate  and  justice  courts  were 
established.  Jurisdiction  in  each  case  also  was  defined,  as  was  the  length  of 
the  terms  of  office. 

The  constitution  was  formed  with  the  idea  that  California  soon  was 
to  become  a  member  of  the  Union,  and  in  this  the  framers  were  not  dis- 


234  Introduction  to   Biographies 

appointed.  On  xlugust  7,  1818,  the  treaty  of  peace  between  the  United 
States  and  Mexico,  by  which  Upper  or  Alta  California  was  formally  ceded 
to  this  country,  had  been  ratified  by  proclamation  of  Governor  Mason. 
Immediately  after  the  State  had  provided  itself  with  a  constitution  and 
the  Legislature  had  established  itself,  General  Eiley,  the  Military  Governor, 
resigned  from  office.  Then  California  began  governing  itself,  although  its 
admission  to  the  Union  did  not  come  until  September  9,  1850. 

The  first  radical  change  in  the  provisions  of  the  original  constitution 
was  made  in  Sejotember,  1862,  For  one  thing,  the  Supreme  Court  was 
given  two  additional  members  and,  as  reorganized,  its  judges  were  Silas  W. 
Sanderson,  Lorenzo  Sawyer,  John  Currey,  Augustus  L.  Rhodes  and  Oscar 
L.  Shaffer,  all  learned  jurists  commanding  the  highest  respect.  Their 
terms  of  office  were  increased  from  six  to  ten  years  and  they  were  given 
added  jurisdiction,  as  were  also  District  and  County  Judges. 

For  the  next  seventeen  years  matters  judicial  ran  along  in  this  way  in 
California;  but  in  1879,  when  another  constitutional  convention  met,  radi- 
cal changes  were  deemed  necessary,  to  keep  pace  with  the  times  and  to 
weed  out  certain  objectionable  features.  The  Supreme  Court  was  enlarged 
again,  this  time  to  seven  members,  whose  terms  of  office  were  twelve  years, 
and  five  commissioners  were  appointed  Avith  power  to  adjudicate  causes 
referred  to  them  by  the  supreme  tribunal ;  the  Court  also  was  divided  into 
two  departments. 

This  convention  brought  into  force  the  important  provision  that,  in 
order  to  expedite  the  meting  out  of  justice,  no  judge  of  a  Superior  or 
Supreme  Court  could  draw  his  monthly  salary  unless  he  made  affidavit  that 
no  cause  submitted  to  him  more  than  ninety  days  before  remained  undecided. 

The  constitutional  amendments  known  as  those  of  1879  went  into  opera- 
tion in  1880.  Under  California's  Constitution,  as  variously  revised,  the 
citizens  of  the  State  have  secured  substantial  justice,  without  being  hemmed 
in  by  many  of  the  "freak"  provisions  that  hampered  the  advancement  of 
other  States  of  the  Union. 

California  is  today  governed  by  four  well-formulated  codes — the  Political 
Code,  the  Penal  Code,  the  Civil  Code  and  the  Code  of  Civil  Procedure. 
Creed  Ilaymond,  as  chairman  of  the  Code  Commission,  with  J.  C.  Burch 
and  Charles  Lindley  as  his  associates,  wrote  the  Codes  in  three  years'  time. 
After  they  had  been  submitted  to  an  advisory  board  they  were  adopted  and 
Avent  into  effect  January  1,  1873.  They  Avere  the  first  complete  Codes  ever 
adopted  by  any  State  and  afterAvard  were  Avidely  copied,  notably  in  the 
revision  of  the  laws  of  Japan. 

The  legal  development  of  California  has  passed  through  many  stirring 
periods;  it  has  brought  forth  many  famous  cases  at  bar  and  many  famous 
lawyers.  N"o  State's  judiciary,  perhaps,  can  point  to  a  more  picturesque 
career.  Still  vivid  in  the  minds  of  the  older  San  Franciscans  are  the  days 
of  the  criminal  band  of  "Hounds"  and  the  famous  Vigilance  Committees 
of  1851  and  1856,  vigorously  fought  by  courts  and  bar  as  being  a  brake 
on  the  approved  forms  of  delivering  justice.  Those  stirring  times  Avill  ever 
remain  green  in  memory. 

Back  OA^er  the  years  stretches  the  history  of  California's  great  men — 
men  in  every  walk  of  life,  men  destined  to  make  for  progress  and  advance- 
ment and  who  lived  out  their  destinies.  To  them  California  OAA^es  the  ful- 
fillment of  its  birthright. 


C.  F.  ADAMS 


ON  first  thought  there  seems  to  be 
slight  connection  between  tlie 
profession  of  electrical  engineer- 
ing and  the  commercial  grow- 
ing of  rice.  But  in  the  case  of  Charles  F. 
Adams  there  is  a  close  connection,  for 
the  first  led  him  to  engage  in  the  sec- 
ond. Today  he  is  do- 
ing electrical  contract- 
ing under  the  firm 
name  of  the  Power 
Equipment  Company, 
and  he  also  is  secre- 
tary and  treasurer,  and 
one  of  the  principal 
owners  of  the  Rice 
Land  and  Products 
Company,  ■whose  rice- 
growing  project  in  Co- 
lusa County  bids  fair 
to  become  the  largest 
on  the  Pacific  Coast. 

Mr.  Adams,  let  it  be 
said  at  the  outset,  is 
perhaps  the  eldest  elec- 
trical engineer  on  the 
coast  in  point  of  actual, 
continuous  experience. 
When  he  entered  the 
profession,  electricity 
was  doing  its  first 
work  and  its  control 
was  largely  a  matter 
of  guesswork.  Since 
1883  he  has  been  doing 
his  part  in  harnessing 
it  and  compelling  it  to  do  man's  service. 

Born  November  10,  1865,  at  North 
Rehoboth,  Massachusetts,  Mr.  Adams  is 
the  son  of  J.  S.  Adams  and  Fannie  E. 
(Smith)  Adams.  His  father  was  a 
noted  inventor.  He  served  through  the 
Civil  War  in  Harper's  Ferry  arsenal 
and  designed  the  first  hand-grenades 
that  had  a  definite  time-limit  for  ex- 
ploding— grenades  that  were  used  later 
in  the  Franco-Prussian  war  and  even 
in  the  present  great  war  in  Europe — 
and  one  of  the  first  models  of  breech- 
loading  carbine   for  cavalry  use 

After  the  close  of  the  war,  the  elder 
Mr.  Adams  became  one  of  the  pioneer 
inventors  of  the  Elgin  National  Watch 
Company,  and  for  aljout  16  years  de- 
veloped all  the  special  machines  for 
the  manufacture  of  small  screws  and 
steel  parts  of  tlie  Elgin  watch.  The 
first  commercial  electric  lights  in  the 
Middle  West,  at  Aurora,  Illinois,  were 
placed  on  steel  towers  designed  and 
constructed  by  J.  S.  Adams,  and  the 
present  high-power  electrical  transmis- 
sion tower  is  but  a  development  of  this 
original  type.  Even  the  present  tower 
used  for  wireless  telegraphy  is  the 
same  type — carried  aliout  twice  as  high 
— as  that  invented  and  constructed 
by  Adams  for  the  lighting  system 
of  Detroit,  Michigan,  in  the  year 
1884. 

Charles  F.  Adams  received  his  educa- 
tion at  Elgin,  Illinois,  and  in  1SS3  com- 
menced work  with  his  father  on  the 
development  and  building  of  electric- 
lighting  towers.  Later  he  built  the 
systems  of  towers  in  Detroit,  Indianapo- 
lis and  Alameda,  California.    The  latter. 


costing    $40,000,    was    completed    just    a 
month   before   he   became   of  age. 

In  1885  Mr.  Adams  went  with  the 
Jenney  Electric  Company  of  Indianapo- 
lis, where  for  two  years  he  secured 
valuable  practical  experience.  Later  he 
was  in  chaige  of  work  for  the  Edison 
General  Electric  Com- 
pany of  Chicago,  in- 
stalling many  light- 
ing systeins  in  the 
INIiddle  West.  For  seven 
years,  beginning  with 
1S9S,  he  was  in  cliarge 
of  tlie  outside  con- 
struction and  expert 
repair  work  of  the 
Stanley  Electric  & 
JNIanufacturing  Com- 
pany of  Pittsfield,  Mass. 
The  Pacific  Gas  & 
Electric  Company  em- 
ployed Mr.  Adains  in 
1906  to  take  charge  of 
the  construction  o  f 
new  stations  and  sub- 
stations following  the 
San  Francisco  fire.  He 
designed  and  con- 
structed stations  in 
San  Francisco,  Oakland 
and  Bei-keley  and  re- 
built stations  and  ap- 
paratus at  Electra, 
Colgate,  De  Sabla  and 
Centerville.  By  his 
work  he  assisted 
largely  in  bringing  about  the  present 
high  standard  of  station  detail  and  per- 
formance. 

He  is  widely  known  on  the  Pacific 
Coast  as  an  expert  in  the  investigation 
and  correction  of  engineering  "trouble." 
When  a  series  of  disastrous  water- 
wheel  wrecks  almost  crippled  the 
hydro-electric  service  of  one  big  com- 
pany, the  work  of  investigation  and 
i-epair  was  placed  in  his  charge.  Out 
of  a  hopeless  mass  of  scrap  copper  and 
steel,  new  dynamos  were  constructed 
and  new  water  wheels  vyere  designed 
and  built  that  are  still  standard.  By  a 
system  of  graphic  analysis,  never  pub- 
lished, errors  of  the  original  design 
were  corrected  and  no  failures  have 
occurred  on  these  big  units  in  the  last 
five  years  of  operation. 

Leaving  the  Pacific  Gas  &  Electric 
Company  in  1911,  Mr.  Adams  has  since 
engaged  in  electrical  engineering  and 
contracting.  One  of  his  recent  proj- 
ects was  the  building,  in  1915,  of  the 
municipal  sewage-pumping  plant,  No. 
2,  for  the  City  of  Sacramento.  He  has 
one  of  the  most  complete  electrical 
libraries   on    the    Pacific   Coast. 

The  Rice  Land  and  Products  Com- 
pany, in  which  Mr.  Adams  is  deeply 
interested,  has  3,000  acres  of  rice  cov- 
ered land,  seven  miles  north  of  Colusa. 
The  pumping  plants  for  this  enter- 
prise were  installed  by  his  firm,  and 
a  careful  study  of  this  project  resulted 
in  his  acquiring  a  permanent  interest 
in  rice  culture.  A  rice  mill  and  a 
large  extension  of  the  rice  fields  will 
result  from  his  plans. 


235 


HUBBARD   FOSTER   ALEXANDER 


THE  success  of  Hubbard  F.  Alex- 
ander— president  of  the  Pacific 
Alaska  Navigation  Company  (The 
Admiral  Line) — like  that  of 
many  other  transportation  men,  is  the 
culmination  of  a  life  in  which  hus- 
tling- methods,  keen  foresight  and  the 
power  to  execute  have 
been  the  contributory 
forces.  But,  unlike 
most  of  those  in  the 
same  line,  or  in  other 
fields,  he  has  arrived 
at  the  zenith  of  pros- 
perity in  much  shorter 
time  despite  the  fact 
that  he  was  seemingly 
handicapped  by  a  most 
humble    beginning. 

He  started  his  battle 
with  the  world  as  a 
longshoreman  when 
only  fifteen  years  of 
age;  but  this  labor, 
instead  of  acting  as  a 
deterrent,  gave  him  an 
experience  that  was 
to  be  useful  in  after 
years  and  developed 
him  physically  for 
a  strenuous  business 
life. 

Mr.  Alexander  was 
born  in  Colorado 
Springs,  Colorado,  August  14,  1879,  the 
son  of  Edward  S.  and  Emma  (Foster) 
Alexander.  His  parents  were  of  old  New 
England  stock,  his  father's  birthplace 
being  Stamford,  Connecticut,  while  his 
mother  was  born  at  Lowell,  Massa- 
chusetts. After  marriage  his  parents 
moved  to  Colorado,  where  his  father's 
business  interests  called  them.  Eleven 
years  later  they  moved  to  Tacoma, 
Washington. 

Mr.  Alexander  was  educated  in  the 
public  and  private  schools  in  Colorado 
Springs  and  Tacoma,  Washington,  but 
on  account  of  severe  financial  reverses 
of  his  family,  left  before  graduation 
to  work  on  the  docks  at  Tacoma. 
After  two  years  at  this  work  he  en- 
tered the  employ  of  Dodwell,  Carlill 
&  Company,  who  were  operating  the 
Northern  Pacific  Steamship  Company 
to  the  Orient,  and  the  Washington  and 
Alaska  Steamship  Company  to  Alaska. 
His  position  with  this  firm  was  check- 
clerk  and  wharf  agent,  which  he  credit- 
ably filled  until  twenty  years  of  age, 
when  he  reorganized  the  Commercial 
Dock  Company,  which  .conducted  a 
general  wharfage  and  shipping  business, 
and  of  which  he  became  president  and 
manager.  He  continued  in  this  posi- 
tion for  seven  years,  at  the  same  time 


which    operates 


acting    as    agent    for    many    coastwise 
steamship   lines. 

The  thorough  knowledge  gained  in 
these  various  connections  led  to  his 
election  in  1906  as  president  of  the 
Alaska  Pacific  Steamship  Company, 
a  line  between  Puget 
Sound  and  California 
ports.  He  was  then 
twenty-seven  years  of 
age  and  was  probably 
the  youngest  man  in 
a  similar  capacity  in 
the  country.  In  1907 
he  became  general 
manager  of  the  Alaska 
Coast  Company,  which 
operates  a  line  a  dis- 
tance of  2,000  miles 
along  the  Alaska 
coast,  and  was  elected 
its  president  in  1912. 
In  1912  the  Pacific 
Alaska  Navigation 
Company  was  organ- 
ized, this  company 
taking  over  both  the 
Alaska  Pacific  Steam- 
ship Company  and  the 
Alaska  Coast  Com- 
pany and  becoming 
the  operating  com- 
pany as  well  as  the 
holding  company,  with 
Mr.  Alexander  as  president.  The  opera- 
tion of  the  Pacific  Alaska  Navigation 
Company  under  this  combination  covers 
3,000  miles  of  the  Pacific  coast,  from 
California  to  Alaska,  being  the  longest 
all-the-year-around  American  coast- 
wise  service. 

The  Pacific  Alaska  Navigation  Com- 
pany is  known  as  "The  Admiral  Line," 
all  of  its  vessels  being  named  after 
admirals    of    the    American    Navy. 

In  addition  to  these  interests  Mr. 
Alexander  retains  the  position  of  presi- 
dent of  the  Commercial  Dock  Company 
of  Tacoma,  which  was  his  first  busi- 
ness venture  and  the  stepping-stone 
to    his   success. 

Mr.  Alexander  is  one  of  the  most 
prominent  men  in  the  Northwestern 
country  and  is  favorably  known  all 
over  the  Pacific  slope.  He  is  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Union,  Country  and  Golf 
and  Commercial  Clubs  of  Tacoma,  the 
Rainier  and  Transportation  Clubs  of 
Seattle,  the  Transportation  and  Pacific 
Union  Clubs  of  San  Francisco,  the 
California  Club  of  Los  Angeles,  and 
of  the  Military  Order  of  the  Loyal 
Legion   of  the  United  States. 

He  married,  in  1902.  Miss  Ruth  Cald- 
well of  Portland,  Oregon,  and  they 
have   one   daughter. 


236 


WILLIAM  A.  BISSELL 


THE  primary  factor  that  makes  for 
man's  success  in  life  is  his  home 
training.  Let  that  be  as  it  should 
be  and  he  cannot  go  far  wrong 
in  carving  out  his  independent  career. 
In  the  life  story  of  many  a  man  his  ad- 
vancement is  explained  by  this  one 
thing — proper  prep- 
aration at  home  for 
the  world's  battles. 

This  applies  in  every 
particular  to  William 
Ambrose  Bissell,  as- 
sistant traffic  manager 
for  the  Santa  Fe  Rail- 
way system  at  San 
Francisco,  and  officer 
or  director  of  a  num- 
ber of  California  cor- 
porations. His  was  a 
scholarly  environment. 
Born  in  1848  at  Lyons, 
Wayne  County,  New 
York,  he  was  the  son 
of  Right  Reverend 
W.  H.  A.  Bissell  and 
Martha  Cotton  (Moul- 
ton)  Bissell,  the  for- 
mer Episcopal  Bishop 
of  "Vermont  from  1868 
until  his  death  in  1893. 
Good  books  were  his 
and  ideals  were  early 
imparted  to  him  by  his 
parents. 

Following  his  common  school  edu- 
cation Mr.  Bissell  took  a  course  at  the 
Geneva  Academy,  Geneva,  New  York. 
The  professions  beckoned  to  him,  but 
the  broad  field  of  business  held  out 
the  stronger  appeal  and  when  16  years 
old  he  accepted  a  minor  position  with 
the  Michigan  Central  Railroad  at 
Detroit.  After  three  years  there  he 
came  to  California  by  way  of  Panama 
in  March,  1868.  At  that  time  Cali- 
fornia's railway  system  was  not  on 
a  very  high  plane.  The  Central  Pacific 
was  then  operating  over  but  ninety 
miles  in  the  State  and  it  was  with  this 
corporation,  at  Sacramento,  that  Mr. 
Bissell  associated  himself. 

In  1870,  with  the  purchase  of  the  San 
Jose  Railroad,  he  was  placed  in  charge 
of  the  traffic  department  at  San  Fran- 
cisco. For  thirteen  years  Mr.  Bissell 
remained  with  the  Central  Pacific.  In 
1883,  however,  there  came  a  flattering 
offer  from  the  Texas  Pacific  Railway 
and  he  became  that  road's  Coast  agent, 
with  offices  in  San  Francisco.  He  ac- 
cepted an  even  better  place  in  Decem- 
ber, 1884,  as  Coast  agent  for  the  Atlan- 
tic &  Pacific  Railroad.  This  later  on 
became  a  part  of  the  Atchison  Railroad 
system  and  Mr.  Bissell  was  made  its 
general  freight  and  passenger  agent. 
By  this  time  he  was  a  recognized  leader 
in  railroad  circles.  In  1894  the  Atchi- 
son system  was  reorganized  as  the 
Atchison,  Topeka  &  Santa  Fe.  Mr.  Bis- 
sell thereupon  was  transferred  to  Chi- 
cago, but  following  the  purchase  in  1900 


of  the  San  Francisco  and  San  Joaquin 
Valley  railroads  he  was  brought  back 
to  San  Francisco  as  assistant  traffic 
manager;  and  here  he  has  since  re- 
mained, in  one  of  the  railway's  inost 
important    executive    positions. 

When  the  affairs  of  tlie  San  Fran- 
cisco-Oakland Termi- 
nal Railways  came 
to  a  crisis  in  1913  the 
United  Properties  trus- 
tees chose  Mr.  Bissell 
as  president  of  the 
railways,  to  put  them 
back  on  a  firm  founda- 
tion. In  this  capacity 
he  served  with  credit 
until  September,  1914, 
when   he   resigned. 

During  his  years  of 
railway  service  Mr. 
Bissell  has  been  quiet- 
ly making  judicious 
investments  until  to- 
day he  has  large  hold- 
ings in  corporations  of 
various  kinds.  He  is 
president  of  the  Liver- 
more  Water  &  Power 
Company,  and  a  direc- 
tor of  the  Holland 
Sandstone  Company, 
Lake  Tahoe  Railway 
&  Transportation 
Company,  Northwest- 
ern Pacific  Railway  Company,  Rich- 
mond Land  Company,  Oakland  &  East 
Side  Railway  Company,  Santa  Fe  Ter- 
minal Company  of  California  and  the 
Union  Savings  Bank  of  Oakland. 

Mr.  Bissell  is  in  active  sympathy  with 
movements  that  tend  to  the  betterment 
of  the  city,  the  State  and  the  Nation, 
and  does  much  work  as  a  member  of 
the  San  Francisco  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce. Of  California  he  believes  its 
future  is  more  brilliant  than  that  of 
any   other   State    in    the   Union. 

Socially  Mr.  Bissell  is  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  Transportation  Club  of 
San  Francisco  and  is  past  vice-president 
of  the  Pacific  Union,  as  well  as  a  mem- 
ber of  the  California  Club  of  Los  An- 
geles and  of  the  Athenian  Club  and 
Claremont  and  Sequoia  Country  Clubs 
of  Oakland.  He  was  married  January 
7,  1870,  to  Miss  Cora  A.  Messick  and 
is  the  father  of  two  grown  children, 
William  H.  and  Daniel  R.  Bissell.  The 
family  home  is  in  Alameda  and  a  part 
of  each  summer  is  spent  at  a  cottage 
overlooking  beautiful  Lake  Tahoe.  Mr. 
Bissell  also  owns  a  ranch  near  Liver- 
more,  where  he  occasionally  spends  a 
few  days  as  a  relaxation  from  his  con- 
fining  duties    in    the    city. 

The  shaping  of  Mr.  Bissell's  career 
has  vitally  affected  California.  For  as 
a  railroader  he  has  helped  build  up 
districts  which,  once  practically  unin- 
habited by  man,  have  been  transformed 
into  prosperous  countrysides,  linked  by 
the  railways  with  the  world's  markets. 


237 


ANSON  S.  BLAKE 


THAT  man's  works  live  after  him  is 
a  truth  that  is  plainly  apparent. 
Especially  does  it  apply  to  those 
works  which  have  to  do  with  the 
alteration  and  improvement  of  the 
earth's  surface  to  meet  the  needs  of 
civilization.  Digging-  here  and  there 
to  remove  certain  land- 
marks, and  employing 
wood,  stone  or  concrete 
with  steel  and  iron  to 
rear  certain  other 
landmarks,  man  has 
changed  things  to  suit 
himself,  and  he  has 
done  it  well. 

The  construction 
man,  perhaps  more 
than  anyone  else,  has 
builded  for  himself 
permanent  monuments. 
Generations  that  come 
after  him  may  gaze 
for  decades  or  cen- 
turies upon  his  handi- 
work, and  may  make 
use  of  the  things  that 
have  cost  him  brains 
and  money  to  make 
possible— without  giv- 
ing more  than  a  pass- 
ing thought  to  what  it 
means  to   them. 

Anson  S.  Blake, 
president  of  the  Blake 
Brotliers  Company  and  officer  in  a  num- 
ber of  other  concerns  of  a  similar  na- 
ture, is  a  man  who  has  spent  all  his 
adult  life  in  the  upbuilding  of  the 
communities  in  which  he  has  moved 
about.  He  has  to  his  credit  a  number  of 
projects  important  to  the  San  Fran- 
cisco bay  district,  and  is  one  of  those 
stanch  business  men  en  whose  shoul- 
ders  much   public   responsibility   rests. 

A  native  of  San  Francisco,  born  Au- 
gust 6,  1870,  Mr.  Blake  is  the  son  of 
Charles  T.  Blake,  himself  a  prominent 
contractor  in  his  time,  and  Harriet 
(Stiles)  Blake.  He  went  through  the 
public  grammar  schools  of  this  city, 
was  graduated  from  the  Boy.s'  High 
School  in  1SS7,  and  subsequently  in  1891 
finished  at  the  University  of  California 
with   the  degree   of  A.   B. 

Almost  immediately  after  leaving 
school  Mr.  Blake  entered  upon  his  busi- 
ness career.  He  became  secretary  of 
the  Bay  Rock  Company,  in  which  his 
father  was  interested,  and  after  two 
years  there  accepted  a  clerkship  with 
the  Oakland  Paving  Company.  In  1897 
he  became  the  latter  concern's  secre- 
tary and  in  1899  its  president.  In  1904 
Mr.  Blake  organized  with  Frank  W. 
Bilger  the  Blake  &  Bilger  Company, 
which  dealt  in  building  inaterials  and 
conducted  a  quarry.  Two  years  ago 
Mr.  Blake  sold  his  interests  in  the  Oak- 
land Paving  Company  to  Mr.  Bilger, 
who  retired  from  the  Blake  &  Bilger 
Company,  and  the  quarrying  concern 
was    given    its    present    designation    of 


Blake  Brothers  Company.  Mr.  Anson  S. 
Blake  is  still  head  of  the  business, 
which  is  of  a  general  contracting  and 
quarrying  nature. 

One  of  Mr.  Blake's  important  con- 
struction projects  was  carried  out  as 
receiver  of  the  ScoHeld  Construction 
Company,  when  he 
completed  the  $1,. ROC- 
OCO Government  dry 
dock  at  Mare  Island 
Navy  Yard  in  1910. 
Two  contracting  con- 
cerns failed  in  the  en- 
deavor  to  carry 
through  the  w^ork, 
which  lasted  over  a 
period  of  seven  years. 
An  idea  of  the  huge 
task  that  confronted 
the  engineers  can  be 
gleaned  from  the  fact 
that  the  bottom  of  the 
dry  dock  consists  of 
concrete  nine  and  a 
half  feet  thick  and 
that  it  rests  on  12,000 
piles.  Excavation  on 
the  big  receptacle  was 
started  by  a  company 
which,  after  heroic  but 
unsuccessful  attempts 
to  stop  the  seepage 
that  continually  dam- 
aged the  labor  as  fast 
as  it  was  performed,  threw  up  the 
contract  in  despair.  The  Scofield  com- 
pany then  took  hold  of  it,  and  finally 
Mr.  Blake  completed  it. 

In  building  the  dock  it  was  neces- 
sary to  use  15,000  piles,  90,000  yards 
of  concrete,  1,500  cubic  yards  of  stone 
and  3,000,000  feet  of  lumber.  The  length 
of  the  dock  is  791  feet.  Its  width  at 
the  bottom  is  76  feet  and  at  the  top  120 
feet.  It  will  hold  a  vessel  drawing  34 
feet.  The  United  States  Government 
formally  accepted  it  May  17,  1910, 
and  on  the  saine  day  the  U.  S.  S. 
California  entered  the  dock  for  repairs. 
This  project  has  since  played  a  big 
part  in  making  the  Mare  Island 
yard  the  important  naval  base  it  is 
today. 

Mr.  Blake  is  also  president  of  the 
Venice  Island  Land  Company,  which  has 
a  3,400  acre  reclamation  project  on  the 
.'>an  Joaquin  river  between  Stockton  and 
Antioch.  The  land  has  proved  valuable 
for  the  growing  of  vegetables  and  grain, 
.-^gain,  Mr.  Blake  is  vice-president  of  the 
Union  Dredging  Company,  which  en- 
gages in  important  operations  in  San 
Francisco  bay  and  about  the  deltas 
of  the  Sacramento  and  San  Joaquin 
rivers. 

Mr.  Blake  was  married  in  San  Fran- 
cisco May  17, 1894,  to  Anita  Day  Symmes, 
daughter  of  Frank  J.  Symmes.  He  is 
a  member  of  the  University  Club  of 
San  Francisco,  the  Athenian  Club  and 
Claremont  Country  Club  of  Oakland  and 
the  Faculty  Club  of  Berkeley. 


238 


THEODORE  Z.  BLAKEMAN 


"A 


MAN  advanced  in  years,"  wrote 
Richai-d  Steele,  the  famous  es- 
sayist, "that  thinlvs  fit  to  look 
back  upon  his  former  life  and 
calls  "hat  only  life  which  was  passed 
with  satisfaction  and  enjoyment,  will 
find  himself  very  young,  if  not  in  his 
infancy." 

Bearing  in  mind  this 
truth  of  "The  Spec- 
tat  o  r,"  Theodore  Z. 
Blakeman,  pioneer  San 
Francisco  attorney  at 
law,  has  indeed  had  a 
well-rounded  career. 
Roses  were  not  strewn 
in  his  pathway.  In- 
deed, he  has  gone 
through  a  great  deal  of 
unpleasantness.  But  it 
has  all  been  life,  real 
life,  and  his  spirit  of 
optimism  has  ever  pre- 
vailed. 

Born  September  29, 
1842,  in  Green  County, 
Kentucky,  Mr.  Blake- 
man is  the  son  of  Moses 
Blakeman,  at  one  time 
a  prominent  slave- 
owner,  and  of  Narcissa 
(Rhea)  Blakeman.  He 
is  a  descendant  o  f 
Adam  Blakeman,  who 
landed  in  America  in 
the  17th  century  and  established  the 
first  English  Episcopal  Church,  at 
Stamford,  Connecticut.  Following  his 
early  education  in  private  schools  in 
Greensburg,  near  his  birthplace,  Mr. 
Blakeman  entered  Georgetown  College, 
and  was  in  his  junior  year  there  when 
the  Civil  War  broke  out. 

One  day  in  1S63,  when  Bragg  had 
forced  back  the  Federals  and  had  swept 
close  to  Cincinnati,  Mr.  Blakeman 
mounted  his  horse,  rode  into  the  Con- 
federate lines  and  enlisted  as  a  private 
in  the  regiment  of  Colonel  Gano.  Sub- 
sequently he  was  with  Morgan  in  the 
famous  raid  through  Ohio.  The  Con- 
federates found  themselves  hemmed  in 
and  surrender  was  decided  upon.  Be- 
fore this  took  place,  however,  Mr.  Blake- 
man and  a  comrade  slipped  away  in  the 
darkness,  procured  civilian  clothes,  and 
walking  boldly  into  Dayton  bought 
tickets  for  Detroit.  Mr.  Blakeman  made 
his  way  clear  to  Windsor,  Canada,  with- 
out being  once  challenged. 

At  Windsor  Mr.  Blakeman  stopped 
with  the  family  of  John  Rodman,  a  Ken- 
tucky lawyer  whom  the  war  had  forced 
into  temporary  exile.  The  youth  took 
up  the  study  of  law  under  Rodman,  and 
when  the  latter  returned  home  Mr. 
Blakeman  apprenticed  himself  to  Mat- 
thew R.  Vankoughnet,  a  brother  of  the 
Chancellor  of  the  Province  of  Ontario. 
A  few  months  later,  when  General  Lee 
surrendered,  Mr.  Blakeman  went  to  New 
York  and  read  law  in  the  office  of  John 


W.  Ashmead,  U.  S.  Attorney  General  in 
President  Taylor's  administration.  He 
was  admitted  to  practice  in  New  York 
in  1S66.  In  1S67  he  went  to  St.  Louis 
and  began  practicing  after  admittance 
to  the  State  and  Federal  courts.  In  1S75 
he  was  admitted  to  the  U.  S.  Supreme 
Court  and  ISSO  he  came 
to  San  Francisco. 

Since    that    time    Mr. 
Blakeman  has  enjoyed 
a     wide     and     success- 
ful law  practice.    From 
1S90   until   1S96   he  ap- 
peared    in     a     notable 
suit   against   the   Bank 
of    California     of    San 
Francisco     and      the 
Rideout-Smitli  Bank  of 
Oroville,    in    which    he 
represented    bondhold- 
ers of  the  Spring  Val- 
1  e  y      Gold      Company, 
owners     of     the     big 
Cherokee    mines.      The 
action    was   very    com- 
plicated   and    had    for 
its    basis    the    recovery 
of  the  mining  property. 
After    taking    the    case 
to    the    Supreme    Court 
Mr.  Blakeman  won  for 
his      clients     and     the 
mines   were    sold   some 
years  later  for  $160,000. 
Mr.  Blakeman  is  perhaps  best  known 
to   the   present  generation   of  attorneys 
by  his   really   remarkable   work   on   be- 
lialf  of   the   widow   of  the   late   Tliomas 
Bell.     When  he  died  in  1S92  Bell  left  an 
estate  valued  at  $1,200,000.     By  1S98,  for 
one  reason  and  another,  it  had  dwindled 
to     almost     nothing     and     had     $250,000 
outstanding    debts.       At    this    juncture 
Mr.     Blakeman     was     retained     by     the 
widow. 

To  begin  with,  Mr.  Blakeman  had  the 
executors  turned  out  and  in  1902  had 
Mrs.  Bell  appointed  general  adminis- 
tratrix. By  suits  in  equity  he  then  re- 
covered for  the  estate  14,000  acres  of 
land,  on  part  of  which  oil  had  been  dis- 
covered. By  selling  part  of  this  the  es- 
tate has  realized  $1,780,000,  and  it  still 
has  left  8,000  acres  for  which  it  has  been 
offered    $2,500,000. 

Mr.  Blakeman  has  built  up  this  mag- 
nificent estate  from  next  to  nothing.  In 
fact  his  efforts  drew  from  Judge  Hen- 
shaw  of  the  Supreme  Court  the  state- 
ment in  open  session  that: 

"I  and  the  members  of  this  court  ap- 
preciate and  have  some  knowledge  of 
the  great  volume  of  evidence  that  has 
been  required  and  the  vast  labor  cast 
upon  you,  and  can  bear  testimony  to  the 
great  value  of  your  services  to  that 
(Bell)  estate." 

Such  a  eulogy  as  that  is  so  unusual 
as  to  be  almost  unique.  It  leaves  noth- 
ing to  be  added. 


239 


LOUIS  P.  BOARDMAN 


AFTER  all,  there  is  nothing  like 
being  prepared  when  one  sets  out 
to  accomplish  some  certain  thing. 
If  a  man  establish  a  grocery 
business,  he  succeeds  if  he  has  trained 
himself  in  this  field  and  knows  its  pit- 
falls beforehand;  he  probably  fails  if 
he  does  not  know 
them.  It  is  much  the 
same  in  any  line  o  f 
work.  The  professions 
— the  doctor,  the  law- 
yer— are  particularly 
required  to  prepare 
themselves  well  if  they 
are  to  attain  anything 
other  than  a  mediocre 
success. 

Louis     P.     Boardman 
owes  his  achievements 
as  a  lawyer  largely  to 
the  fact  that  when  he 
had  the  opportunity  to 
study     and     learn     the 
rudiments    of    law    he 
took    advantage    of    it. 
The     result    was     that 
Mr.     Boardman     began 
doing  things  immediately  after  he  was 
admitted   to  the  bar.     And  he  has  been 
doing   things — big,    important    things — 
ever  since. 

Born  in  1S74  at  Reno,  Nevada,  Mr. 
Boardman  is  the  son  of  Judge  W.  M. 
Boardman  and  Mariah  (Harris)  Board- 
man.  His  father  was  prominent  in 
legal  circles,  both  at  the  bar  and  on 
the  bench,  and  three  of  his  four  sons, 
Louis  P.,  Philip  C.  and  Joseph  Board- 
man,  have  followed  in  his  footsteps  by 
entering  the  profession  also.  The  elder 
Boardman  was  at  one  time  district  at- 
torney for  Washoe  and  Story  counties, 
Nevada,  and  later  on  was  elected  judge 
for   the   same   di.'strict. 

When  it  came  time  for  Louis  P.  Board- 
man  to  seek  an  education  he  was  placed 
in  the  hands  of  private  tutors  in  Reno. 
Later  on  he  went  for  a  time  to  the  State 
"University  of  Nevada  at  Reno,  and 
when  about  16  years  old  came  to  Cali- 
fornia with  his  parents.  Soon  after- 
ward he  entered  the  University  of  the 


Pacific  at  Santa  Clara,  but  when  Stan- 
ford University  was  opened  at  Palo 
Alto  he  enrolled  at  the  new  institution 
of  learning  as  a  member  of  its  first 
class.  He  was  graduated  from  Stanford 
with  the  degree  of  A.  B. 

Judge  Boardman  was  at  this  time 
practicing  law  in  San 
Francisco  and  the  son 
took  up  his  legal  stud- 
ies in  his  father's  of- 
fices. Judge  Boardman 
was  called  away  of- 
tentimes to  various 
points  in  Northern  Cal- 
ifornia in  the  course 
of  his  practice,  and  his 
son  on  such  occasions 
carried  on  the  routine 
work  here.  This  gave 
him  valuable  experi- 
ence along  practical 
lines,  experience  which 
he  soon  was  to  turn  to 
account. 

Louis  P.  Boardman 
was  admitted  to  the 
bar  in  California  and 
almost  immediately  afterward  repre- 
sented Theodore  Durrant,  convicted  of 
murder,  in  Durrant's  appeal  to  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court  on  a  ques- 
tion of  constitutional  law.  The  lower 
court's  ruling  was  affirmed  by  the 
higher  tribunal,  but  Mr.  Boardman 
was  nevertheless  complimented  on  the 
able  manner  in  which  he  had  prepared 
tlie  plea. 

Mr.  Boardman's  law  practice  is  of  a 
general  nature,  though  largely  confined 
to  civil  law.  He  has  appeared  a  great 
deal  in  probate  matters  and  at  present 
represents  the  widow  in  the  million- 
dollar  estate  of  the  late  George  K.  Por- 
ter. This  takes  him  to  Los  Angeles  a 
great  part  of  the  time,  although  he 
maintains  his  permanent  offices  in  the 
Crocker  building,  San  Francisco. 

In  politics  Mr.  Boardman  is  a  Re- 
publican. He  has  not  sought  political 
preferment,  however,  contenting  him- 
self merely  with  working  on  behalf  of 
his  friends. 


240 


PHILIP  C.  BOARDMAN 


THERE  is  such  a  thing  as  failing  in 
a  business  or  professional  career 
because  one  does  not  realize  that, 
to  attain  anything  worth  while, 
one  must  "stick  close  to  the  job."  Pleas- 
ures allure  and  the  enticement  is  too 
strong;  or,  perhaps,  the  mind  and  heart 
are  not  in  the  work 
and  what  seems  pleas- 
ure in  itself  to  one  man 
appears  as  dull,  grind- 
ing labor  to  another. 
Once  a  man  lets  his  in- 
terest wander  he  is  al- 
most foredoomed  to 
failure.  He  might  as 
well  quit  it  all  right 
then. 

All  of  which  is  but  a 
prelude  to  the  state- 
ment that  one  of  the 
main  reasons  Philip  C. 
Boardman  has  s  u  c  - 
ceeded  in  the  practice 
of  law  is  that  he  real- 
ized all  this  at  the  out- 
set. When  he  entered 
upon  the  study  of  his 
profession  he  k  n  e  w 
that  it  would  require 
work — and  plenty  of  it. 
He  was  cognizant  of  the  fact  that  years 
of  close  application  were  before  him, 
and  that  if  he  were  to  make  a  name  for 
himself  among  his  co-practitioners  he 
must  "stick  close  to  the  job." 

He  has  done  so,  and  the  results  have 
been  most  gratifying. 

Mr.  Boardman  is  a  native  of  Nevada. 
He  was  born  at  Reno,  January  14,  1883. 
His  father  was  Judge  W.  M.  Boardman, 
at  one  time  district  attorney  for  Washoe 
and  Story  Counties,  Nevada,  and  after- 
ward district  judge  for  the  same  judi- 
cial division.  He  was  eminently  suc- 
cessful in  the  law,  both  as  a  practi- 
tioner and  on  the  bench,  and  his  sons 
came  naturally  by  their  inclination  for 
a  similar  career.  Mr.  Boardman's  mother 
was  Mariah   (Harris)  Boardman. 

When  it  came  time  for  Mr.  Boardman 
to  seek  an  education  he  was  sent  to  the 
public  schools  of  his  home  city.  When 
he  was  but  7  years  old  his  parents 
moved  to  California,  living  for  a  time 
at  Monterey  and  Pacific  Grove. 

In  1900  Philip  C.  Boardman  was  grad- 
uated from  the  Monterey  County  High 
School.  He  had  long  planned  to  follow 
In  his  father's  footsteps  as  a  lawyer,  as 
well  as  In  those  of  his  elder  brother, 
Louis    P.    Boardman,    who    was   at    that 


time  associated  in  practice  with  Samuel 
M.  Shortridge.  He  began  his  law  studies 
in  this  office,  where  he  remained  for  a 
little  more  than  two  years.  In  the  early 
part  of  1909,  having  taken  the  necessary 
examinations  and  passed  them,  he  was 
admitted  to  practice  in  the  State  courts 
of  California  by  mo- 
tion before  the  District 
Court  of  Appeal,  First 
Appellate  District.  In 
1911  he  was  admitted 
also  to  the  United 
States  District  Court. 

Immediately  follow- 
ing his  admittance  Mr. 
Boardman  began  prac- 
ticing alone,  and  he 
has  continued  so  until 
now.  His  business  is 
of  a  general  nature, 
although  the  bulk  of 
his  work  is  in  civil 
law.  He  has  practiced 
in  every  court  in  San 
Francisco  and  has  ap- 
peared in  a  profes- 
sional capacity  also  in 
nearly  every  county  of 
California. 

One  of  Mr.  Board- 
man's  coups  was  his  rejuvenation  of 
the  Combined  Oil  Company,  for  which 
lie  is  general  counsel.  The  concern's 
property  in  the  North  Midway  field 
was,  three  years  or  so  ago,  in  debt  to 
the  extent  of  $100,000.  Mr.  Boardman 
was  retained  to  take  charge  of  the  situ- 
ation, and  he  not  only  put  the  corpora- 
tion entirely  out  of  debt  but  he  accumu- 
lated for  it  assets  which  today  are  in 
excess  of  a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars. 
This  was  another  result  of  close  appli- 
cation, coupled  with  the  ability  to  see 
through  and  unravel  a  complex  prob- 
lem, keeping  in  touch  with  all  the 
details  as  the  matter  worked  itself  out. 
Although  his  political  leanings  are 
toward  the  Republican  party,  Mr. 
Boardman  is  a  politician  in  no  sense 
other  than  that  he  is  naturally  inter- 
ested in  anything  that  affects  the  city 
or  the  nation  in  which  he  lives  and 
works.  He  has  never  sought  office,  nor 
has  he  been  active  politically  except  on 
behalf  of  a  friend  whom  he  felt  worthy 
of  the  preferment  sought. 

His  flourishing  practice  has  also  kept 
Mr.  Boardman  too  busy  to  take  part  In 
matters  of  a  social  or  fraternal  nature 
and  he  has  done  little  along  either  line. 
He  Is  unmarried. 


241 


GEORGE  O.  BRADLEY 


GEORGE  OLIVER  BRADLEY,  chief 
consulting  engineer  to  Colonel 
Daniel  C.  Jackling,  has  designed 
and  constructed  mining  and  met- 
allurgical plants  of  a  greater  combined 
tonnage  capacity  than  has  any  other  one 
engineer  in  the  world.  And  for  Colonel 
Jackling  alone  he  has 
built  plants  that  will 
exceed  in  capacity 
those  of  any  other  live 
metalliferous  mining 
interests  in  the  world 
put  together. 

Few  persons,  per- 
haps, aside  from  those 
personally  acquainted 
with  Mr.  Bradley,  or 
those  whose  interests 
lie  in  the  mining  or  en- 
gineering field,  know 
this  important  fact. 
And  the  reason  they  do 
not  know  it  is  simply 
that  Mr.  Bradley  has 
not  told  them.  Work- 
ing quietly  and  with- 
out ostentation,  stick- 
ing close  to  his  duties 
and  making  them  his 
paramount  interest,  he 
has  shunned  publicity 
rather  than  sought  it. 

And     these     are     the 
very    reasons    why    he 
has  been  able  to  accomplish  so  much  in 
so    comparatively    few    years. 

Mr.  Bradley  is  a  native  of  Colorado. 
He  was  born  at  Arvada  January  17, 
1867,  the  son  of  William  C.  Bradley,  a 
pioneer  in  the  Western  transportation 
field,  and  Emily  F.  (Graves)  Bradley. 
After  receiving  his  education  in  the 
public  schools  of  Golden,  Colorado,  Mr. 
Bradley,  while  still  a  youth,  served  a 
four  years'  apprenticeship  in  machinery 
and  mechanical  engineering  at  Denver. 

Immediately  following  this  period  of 
training  Mr.  Bradley  accepted  a  posi- 
tion as  drauglitsman  for  the  Moffat 
mining  properties  at  Leadville.  Ever 
since  then  he  has  been  associated  con- 
stantly witli  tlie  development  and  ad- 
vancement of  the  mining  industry  in 
the  various  districts  of  the  country. 

For  eighteen  years  now  Mr.  Bradley 
has  been  associated  with  Colonel  Jack- 
ling. Something  like  a  dozen  years  ago 
began  those  famous  experiments  with 
low-grade  copper  ores  that  marked  a 
new  epoch  in  the  growth  of  the  coun- 
try's copper  production.  Mr.  Bradley 
worked  throughout  that  campaign 
which  has  placed  Bingham,  Utah,  on 
the  map  and  made  of  the  Utah  Copper 
Company  one  of  the  controlling  factors 
in  the  copper  industry  of  the  United 
States. 

At  Bingham  was  discovered  a  verita- 
ble   mountain    of    low-grade    porphyry. 


The  ore  was  comparatively  easy  to 
mine,  but  a  deterrent  was  found  in  the 
inability  of  the  miners  to  make  the 
Avorking  of  the  porphyry  commercially 
profitable.  Some  of  the  foremost  min- 
ing engineers  of  the  nation  declared 
that  the  ores  could  not  be  made  to  pay. 
AtCopperton  Mr. 
Bradley  designed  and 
built  for  the  Utah  Cop- 
per Co.  a  500-ton  ex- 
perimental reduction 
plant.  Here  was  taken 
ore  from  Bingham, 
nearby,  and  here  tlie 
experiments  were  car- 
ried on.  Data  collected 
by  means  of  these  ex- 
periments not  only 
made  possible  the 
project  for  working 
tlie  Bingham  ores,  but 
it  was  used  in  tlie  con- 
struction of  a  plant  at 
Garfield,  Utah,  with 
12,000-ton  daily  capac- 
ity. This  plant  is  now 
handling  26,000  tons  a 
day. 

The  mine  at  Bing- 
ham is  today  world- 
famous.  In  character 
it  is  uniciue.  By  reason 
of  the  process  which 
makes  it  possible  to 
work  with  profit  the  low-grade  ores,  it 
is  also  possible  to  mine  with  steam 
shovels.  Round  and  round  the  moun- 
tain of  ore  the  shovels  have  eaten  their 
way,  lessening  slowly  but  none  the  less 
surely  the  vast  mineral  deposit. 

Previous  to  all  this,  Mr.  Bradley  built 
tlie  plant  of  the  Anaconda  Copper  Com- 
pany in  Montana.  From  there  he  went 
to  Bisbee,  Arizona,  and  erected  the  cop- 
per converting  plant  of  the  Copper 
Queen  Consolidated  Mining  Company. 
After  the  completion  of  tliis  work  tliere 
followed  the  designing  and  building  by 
Mr.  Bradley  of  the  reduction  works  of 
the  Ray  Consolidated  Copper  Company 
in  Arizona  and  of  the  Chino  Copper 
Comimny   in  New  Mexico. 

Following  his  construction  of  the 
plant  of  the  Butte  &  Superior  Copper 
Company,  Ltd.,  at  Butte,  Montana,  Mr. 
Bradley  in  1912  went  to  Alaska  and  built 
the  works  of  the  Alaska  Gold  Mines 
Company.  At  the  present  time  Mr. 
Bradley  is  designing  another  gold  re- 
duction plant,  one  of  10,000  tons  daily 
capacitj^  for  the  Alaska-Juneau  Gold 
Mining  Company,  a  concern  controlled 
by  San  Francisco  and  New  York  in- 
terests. 

Through  all  these  years  Mr.  Bradley 
has  worked  early  and  late,  without  even 
so  much  as  a  vacation.  Considering 
this,  his  record  is  easily  accounted 
for. 


242 


HERBERT  F.  BRIGGS 


IP  diversified  experience  has  anything 
to  do  with  a  man's  success — and  al- 
most anyone  will  aver  that  it  does 
have  a  lot  to  do  with  it — then  Her- 
bert F.  Brig-g-s  should  accomplish  as 
much  in  the  practice  of  law  as  he  accom- 
plished in  the  ministry  or  in  the  world 
of  business.  For  he 
has  really  seen  life 
from  a  great  many  an- 
gles— seen  it  at  its  best 
and  at  its  worst,  with 
plenty  of  the  mediocre 
in  between. 

Ever  since  he  was  a 
youth  Mr.  Briggs  had 
been  attracted  to  the 
law  as  a  profession. 
But  his  desire  to  be- 
come a  lawyer  was 
outweighed  by  another 
desire,  that  to  help  men 
who  needed  help.  He 
would  have  gone  into 
social  service  had  such 
a  thing  been  as  well 
defined  then  as  it  is  to- 
day. But  at  that  time 
the  church  seemed  to 
him  to  be  the  only 
medium  through  which 
he  could  work — so  he 
entered  the  church. 

Mr.  Briggs  was  born 
March  16,  1866,  at  Sac- 
ramento, California, 
and  his  father,  Martin  Clock  Briggs, 
was  a  clergyman  of  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church.  His  mother  was  Ellen 
(Green)  Briggs,  a  native  of  New  York 
State.  The  elder  Briggs  came  to  San 
Francisco  on  the  vessel  that  brought 
the  news  of  California's  admittance  into 
the  Union. 

The  present  Mr.  Briggs  was  educated 
in  the  Lincoln  School  of  San  Francisco, 
having  moved  to  this  city  with  his  par- 
ents when  he  was  about  12  years  old. 
He  was  graduated  from  the  Alameda 
High  School  in  1884,  and  after  attend- 
ing for  a  time  Evanston  Academy  at 
Evanston,  111.,  entered  Northwestern 
University  of  Evanston.  He  received 
the  degree  of  A.  B.  from  this  institu- 
tion in  1889,  and  after  three  years  in 
the  Boston  University  School  of  The- 
ology was  given  the  degree  of  S.  T.  B. 
in  1892.  The  same  year,  by  virtue  of 
independent  study,  he  gained  the  degree 
of  A.  M.  from  Northwestern. 

By  this  time  Mr.  Briggs'  plans  for 
entering  the  ministry  had  crystallized. 
In  1890  he  had  entered  the  California 
Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  and  in  1892  he  formally  en- 
tered the  ministry,  although  his  final 
ordination  did  not  come  until  1894.  His 
first  pastorate  was  at  Los  Gatos,  Cali- 
fornia. Three  years  he  remained  there, 
but  in  1895  was  transferred  to  Santa 
Cruz,  where  he  served  two  years  more. 

At  this  juncture  Mr.  Briggs,  desiring 


to    further   his    erudition    the    better   to 
equip    himself   for   the    work    that    was 
to   follow,    spent   a   year  and   a   half   at 
the  University  of  Berlin,  specializing  in 
New    Testament    Greek    and    theology. 
Then  he  spent  an  unusually  productive 
period   of  six  months  reading  theology 
in    the    library    of    the 
British       Museum       i  n 
London.      He    returned 
home  in  1899  to  accept 
the  chair  of  New  Test- 
ament    Greek     in     the 
Iliff  School  of  Theology 
in  Denver,  but  the  next 
year    returned    to    the 
California    Conference. 
Placed    in    charge    of 
the    work    of    the    City 
Missionary    Society    of 
San   Francisco  in   1900, 
Mr.  Briggs  occupied  the 
position    for    one    year, 
or  until  1901,  when  he 
and  his  brother,  A.   H. 
Briggs,      were      made 
joint    pastors    of    Cen- 
tral M.   E.  Church,  San 
Francisco.       In    1903, 
however,      under     the 
firm  and  honest  convic- 
tion  that   he   could   not 
accomplish  in  the  min- 
istry   what    he    desired 
to  accomplish  he — and 
his     brother    also — re- 
signed    in     good     standing     and     with- 
drew. 

For  the  succeeding  five  years  Mr. 
Briggs  gained  exceedingly  valuable  ex- 
perience in  the  business  world,  along 
various  lines.  During  this  period  he 
made  a  business  trip  around  the  world, 
his  journey  taking  him  to  Africa,  Eng- 
land, Australia,  the  Philippines,  Japan, 
China  and  Hawaii.  By  this  time  the 
way  was  open  for  him  to  study  law, 
and  he  took  advantage  of  it,  pursuing 
his  work  privately  for  three  years. 
He  passed  the  examinations  before  the 
District  Court  of  Appeal  and  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  bar  May  4,  1911. 

Ever  since  then  Mr.  Briggs  has  been 
practicing  law  independently.  He  con- 
fines himself  largely  to  civil  law,  with 
very  little  criminal  work,  and  most  of 
his  practice  is  along  probate  and  cor- 
poration law  lines. 

Mr.  Briggs  is  a  Republican  but  not 
active  in  politics,  although  he  served  as 
a  member  of  the  Board  of  Library  Trus- 
tees of  Berkeley  and  also  as  a  member 
of  the  Berkeley  Board  of  Education. 
He  belongs  to  the  Masonic  order,  San 
Francisco  Commandery  No.  42,  Knights 
Templar,  to  the  Elks  and  to  the  Beta 
Theta  Pi  fraternity.  He  was  married 
August  6,  1892,  in  Evanston,  111.,  to  Miss 
Sara  M.  Foster.  The  couple  have  had 
two  sons,  Arthur  Foster  Briggs,  now 
dead,  and  Herbert  Mitchem  Briggs, 
aged  13. 


243 


WILLIAM  H.  BYINGTON,  JR. 


THE    dealer    in    financial    securities 
occupies  an  important  place  in  tlie 
business  community.     If  he  is  ca- 
pable, if  he  builds  up  his  clientele 
and   gains   the    confidence    of   investors, 
he    may    become    one    of    the    foremost 
figures    in    industrial    progress. 

Land  does  not  de- 
velop itself;  money  is 
needed  to  start  colon- 
ization going.  Indus- 
tries do  not  spring  into 
popular  favor  without 
much  preliminary  la- 
bor and  exploitation 
and  the  erection  of 
factories,  and  for  all 
this  there  is  needed 
capital.  Everywhere 
one  turns  one  sees  in- 
dustries of  a  hundred 
different  natures 
which,  were  it  not  for 
proper  financing,  would 
not,  could  not,  exist. 

William  H.  Bying- 
ton,  Jr.,  dealer  in  first 
mortgage  bonds  and 
consistent  booster  for 
his  native  State,  has 
for  the  past  decade  de- 
voted his  time  to  the 
financing  of  California 
industrial  projects. 
When  called  upon  to  provide  money  for 
a  meritorious  business  cause,  he  has 
gone  forth  and  secured  it,  no  matter  how 
great  a  sum  might  be  required.  His 
deals  have  run  into  the  millions,  and 
not  only  from  other  sections  of  the 
United  States  but  from  Europe  has  the 
needed  capital  been  brought. 

Born  August  29,  1882,  at  Downieville, 
Sierra  County,  Mr.  Byington  is  the  son 
of  William  H.  Byington  and  Nellie 
Frances  (McDonald)  Byington.  The 
family  removed  to  San  Francisco  in 
1889  and  Mr.  Byington  attended  the 
public  schools  of  this  city,  being  grad- 
uated from  Lowell  High  School  in  1901. 

In  1902  Mr.  Byington  entered  the  law 
department  of  the  United  Railroads  of 
San  Francisco  as  an  adjuster  of  damage 
claims.  He  remained  with  this  corpo- 
ration until  1907  when  he  became  inter- 
ested in  the  sale  of  bonds  and  entered 
this  new  field,  where  he  has  since 
mapped  out  his  career. 

At  the  outset  Mr.  Byington  sold  Cali- 
fornia securities  in  New  York,  Boston 
and  Washington,  D.  C,  as  well  as  in 
other  Eastern  financial  centers 
necessitated  his  traveling  a 
deal. 

In  1909  he  was  retained  by  a 
of  developers  to  inspect  a  large  tract  of 
delta  land  in  San  Joaquin  County.  He 
did  so,  and  on  his  advice  a  corporation 
was  organized  and  began  the  develop- 
ment,    following     out     Mr.     Byington's 


This 
good 


group 


ideas  as  to  the  financial  procedure. 
This  project  represented  something  like 
$1,750,000. 

The  next  big  deal  came  in  1911,  when 
Mr.  Byington,  on  behalf  of  certain  Cali- 
fornia  investors,   went   to   Washington, 
D.      C,      and      offered      Truxtun      Beale 
$3,000,000     for    his    fa- 
mous   275,000-acre    Te- 
jon  rancli  in  Kern  and 
Los   Angeles    Counties. 
Mr.  Byington  had  raised 
the     money     and     was 
ready  to  close  the  deal 
at  once;  but  Mr.  Beale 
refused    the    offer    and 
the  plan  was  stifled. 

The  same  year  Mr. 
Byington  branched  out 
and  became  interested 
in  oil  securities.  In  the 
same  Eastern  field  in 
which  he  had  started 
out  he  sold  first  mort- 
gage bonds  of  produc- 
ing California  oil  com- 
panies, at  the  same 
time  handling  other 
strong  industrial  secu- 
rities as  he  had  done 
from  the  first.  His  oil 
operations  lasted  until 
1913.  Since  then  he  has 
handled  other  high- 
class  bonds  in  various  sections  of  the 
country,  while  maintaining  offices  in 
San    Francisco. 

The  great  European  war,  which  has 
been  so  universally  disastrous  to  the 
financing  of  American  business  schemes, 
also  had  its  effect  upon  the  operations 
of  Mr.  Byington.  He  was  forced  to  halt 
two  big  deals,  although  they  will  un- 
doubtedly be  carried  through  to  a  suc- 
cessful conclusion  vi^hen  the  situation 
gets  back  to  normal  again. 

Mr.  Byington,  in  one  of  these  deals, 
brought  French  capital  here  for  the 
purpose  of  a  large  development  project 
in  the  San  Joaquin  Valley.  There  is 
involved  $2,500,000.  French  representa- 
tives were  here  from  Paris  to  bring  the 
matter  to  a  close,  but  were  forced  by 
the  war  to  return  home. 

Mr.  Byington  has  invested  heavily  in 
California  lands  and  securities  on  his 
own  account,  being  a  firm  believer  in 
the  stability  and  future  of  the  State. 
Professionally,  he  has  confined  his  ef- 
forts in  the  past  few  years  to  placing 
high-grade  first  mortgage  bonds  on  the 
Pacific  Coast  and  through  the  Eastern 
States. 

In  1907  Mr.  Byington  was  married  in 
San  Francisco  to  Celia  Breitstein  and 
has  one  daughter,  Virginia,  aged  5 
years.  He  confines  his  social  activities 
largely  to  membership  in  the  Olympic 
Club. 


244 


RUSSELL  W.  CANTRELL 


WHEN  the  fire  of  April,  1906, 
swept  over  San  Francisco,  all 
but  TSLzing  the  city  to  the 
ground,  it  destroyed,  along 
with  hundreds  of  others,  the  business  of 
Russell  W.  Cantrell,  who  at  that  time 
conducted  the  Sterling  Jewelry  Com- 
pany. It  also  marked 
a  turning  point  in  Mr. 
Cantrell's  life  and  ca- 
reer. 

For  some  time  be- 
fore the  conflagration 
Mr.  Cantrell  had  been 
planning  to  take  up 
the  study  of  law.  The 
fire  decided  him.  From 
then  on  he  was  deter- 
mined he  would  carry 
his  stock  in  trade  "un- 
der his  hat,"  where  it 
would  be  at  least  com- 
paratively safe.  Ac- 
cordingly he  studied, 
was  admitted  to  the 
bar,  began  practic- 
ing— and  more  and 
more  each  year  since 
has  he  had  cause  to 
congratulate  himself 
on  the  change. 

Mr.  Cantrell  is  a  na- 
tive of  San  Francisco.  He  was  born 
August  28,  1881,  the  son  of  Joseph  B. 
Cantrell,  who  was  in  the  mercantile 
business  here,  and  Catherine  T.  (Shea) 
Cantrell.  He  attended  the  public 
schools  and  in  1898  was  graduated  from 
the  San  Francisco  Polytechnic  High 
School. 

By  this  time  Mr.  Cantrell  was  look- 
ing forward  to  one  day  becoming  an 
attorney  at  law.  He  was  restrained 
from  entering  the  profession  at  once, 
however,  by  the  advice  of  his  father,- 
who  believed  that  no  man  can  under- 
stand the  law  thoroughly  unless  he  be 
at  least  25  years  old.  This  view  was 
the  same  as  that  of  a  chief  justice  of 
the  Supreme  Court,  who  had  himself 
abided  by  it  and  whose  own  career  he 
offered  as  proof  of  his  argument. 

At  the  time  he  left  school  Mr.  Can- 
trell was  still  a  youth.  In  casting 
about  for  something  to  occupy  his  time 
until  the  right  moment  for  a  law  ca- 
reer should  be  at  hand  he  saw  an  op- 
portunity as  traveling  salesman  for  a 
firm  of  diamond  importers.  He  em- 
braced the  chance  and  for  the  next 
seven  or  eight  years  traveled  about  on 
the  Pacific  Coast,  from  Alaska  as  far 
south    as    Mexico.     This    gave    him    a 


broad  experience  in  business,  which  has 
since  proved  extremely  useful  to  him. 

In  1905  Mr.  Cantrell  launched  the 
Sterling  Jewelry  Company,  dealing  in 
imported  diamonds,  fine  watches  and 
jewelry,  and  continuing  so  until  the 
wiping  out  of  stock  and  store  by  the 
fire.  Before  the  end  of 
the  same  year  he  en- 
tered Stanford  Univer- 
sity, where  he  special- 
ized in  law.  Two  years 
later,  after  accom- 
plishing a  three-year 
course — by  dint  of 
close  application  and 
by  attending  the  sum- 
mer sessions  at  the 
University  of  Califor- 
nia— in  two,  he  re- 
turned to  San  Fran- 
cisco, took  the  bar  ex- 
amination and  was  ad- 
mitted to  practice. 

During  his  second 
year  at  college  Mr. 
Cantrell  paid  his  own 
way  by  working  as  an 
expert  accountant  for 
a  number  of  mercantile 
firms.  He  had  taken 
up  accountancy  imme- 
diately after  leaving  high  school  and 
had  perfected  himself  in  it. 

Mr.  Cantrell  has  had  practically  no 
practice  in  the  criminal  courts.  He 
has  confined  himself  to  civil  law,  spe- 
cializing in  corporation  and  like  work. 
He  also  has  appeared  in  numerous  cases 
in  the  probate  courts.  At  present  he 
represents  a  son  of  William  A.  Nivells,  a 
pioneer  miner  of  Amador  and  Trinity 
Counties  who  died  in  1912  leaving  an 
estate  supposed  to  be  worth  something 
in  the  neighborhood  of  a  million 
dollars.  A  contest  of  Nivells'  will 
is  shortly  to  be  brought  to  trial. 
Mr.  Cantrell  is  general  counsel  for  a 
number  of  real  estate  and  other  cor- 
porations. 

What  with  the  stress  of  his  legal 
practice,  Mr.  Cantrell  has  not  found 
time  to  be  active  in  politics,  although 
he  is  a  stanch  supporter  of  the  Demo- 
cratic cause,  and  belongs  to  the  Iroquois 
Club.  He  also  holds  membership  in  the 
San  Francisco  Bar  Association,  the  San 
Francisco  Commercial  Club  and  the  Na- 
tional Union. 

Mr.  Cantrell  was  married  February  22, 
1908,  in  San  Francisco  to  Miss  Louise 
Bacigalupi.  His  home  is  at  2201  Lar- 
kin  street. 


245 


THOMAS  A.   CASHIN 


ON  December  28,  1912,  when  the  first 
street  cur  was  operated  on  the 
Geary  street  line  of  the  Municipal 
Railways,  the  new  traction  enter- 
prise boasted  of  but  10.90  miles  of  single 
track  roadway,  9  cars  and  56  employes 
of  all  kinds.  During-  the  four  remain- 
ing days  of  the  first 
month  the  receipts  to- 
taled  $3,300.60. 

On  July  1,  1915,  a  lit- 
tle more  than  two 
years  and  a  half  later, 
the  Municipal  Rail- 
ways was  operating 
over  about  44  miles  of 
single  track,  and  had 
168  large  type  and  29 
small  type  cars  and 
850  employes  of  all 
classes.  The  first  four 
days  of  the  month 
brought  into  the  cor- 
poration's coffers  $26,- 
096.50. 

When  one  considers 
that  the  Municipal 
Railway  system  was 
placed  almost  at  once 
on  a  paying  basis  un- 
der the  management  of 
Superintendent  Thom- 
as A.  Cashin,  there  is 
reflected  on  Mr.  Cashin 
not  a  little  honor  and 
credit.  In  fact  the  suc- 
cess of  the  municipal  enterprise,  which 
has  attracted  world-wide  attention,  is 
attributed  in  a  large  degree  to  Superin- 
tendent Cashin's  practical  experience 
and  his  unremitting  efforts  toward  en- 
largement and  betterment  of  the  city  of 
San  Francisco's  project. 

Thomas  A.  Cashin  is  a  native  of  San 
Francisco.  He  was  born  here  June  19, 
1879,  the  son  of  D'Arcy  M.  Cashin,  min- 
ing promoter  and  at  one  time  engaged 
in  the  ice  and  cold  storage  business,  and 
of  Kate  E.  (Taylor)  Cashin.  Mr.  Cashin 
attended  the  grammar  schools,  the  Boys' 
High  School  and  the  Polytechnic  High 
School,  afterward  studying  law  in  the 
oflSce  of  A.  P.  Van  Duzer.  This  was  in 
1897. 

A  year  and  a  half  later  a  combination 
of  circumstances  made  it  imperative 
that  Mr.  Cashin  give  up  his  studies  and 
look  for  a  lucrative  position.  He  be- 
came a  clerk  in  the  otlice  of  the  sec- 
retary of  the  Los  Angeles  Street  Rail- 
way Company,  located  in  San  Francisco, 
and  in  the  next  three  years  stored  up  his 
first  experience  in  street  railway  work. 

A  better  opportunity  then  presenting 
itself,  Mr.  Cashin  went  with  the  old 
Market  Street  Railway  Company  in  the 
capacity  of  stenographer  and  time- 
keeper in  the  maintenance  of  way  and 
construction  department.  From  this  he 
went  into  the  accounting  department, 
later  becoming  material  clerk  in  charge 
of  all  materials,  and  finally  became  as- 
sistant engineer  of  way  and  construc- 
tion. 

In   1909   another   opportunity   for  ad- 


vancement was  placed  before  him.  This 
was  the  superintendency  of  the  Fresno 
Traction  Company  at  Fresno,  Califor- 
nia, and  Mr.  Cashin  accepted.  Here  his 
capability  and  progressiveness  mani- 
fested itself  and  he  soon  had  gained  an 
enviable  reputation  as  a  practical  di- 
rector of  street  rail- 
way affairs.  The  re- 
sult was  that  when  the 
Municipal  Railways  of 
San  Francisco  became 
a  I'eality,  railway  ex- 
perts recommended  Mr. 
Cashin  as  superintend- 
ent and  he  was  ap- 
pointed such  October  7, 
1912. 

And  let  it  be  said 
here  that  the  appoint- 
ment was  not  involved 
with  politics  in  any 
way.  Mr.  Cashin  is  a 
Republican  but  he  is 
not  a  politician.  He 
stood  on  his  record,  as 
he  stands  today,  was 
chosen  for  the  place 
from  among  six  aspi- 
rants and  at  the  time 
of  his  appointment 
knew  none  of  the  Su- 
pervisors nor  was  he 
acquainted  even  with 
Mayor  Rolph. 

Starting  in  with 
practically  nothing.  Superintendent 
Cashin  has  built  up  the  Municipal  Rail- 
ways in  a  remarkable  manner.  In  the 
first  year  of  its  operation  the  Geary 
street  road  paid  into  the  city  treasury 
the  total  profit  above  all  expenditures 
of  .$85,345.80. 

The  Geary  street  line,  which  orig- 
inally ran  from  Geary  and  Market 
streets  to  33rd  avenue  and  Geary  and 
to  10th  avenue  and  Fulton,  was  ex- 
tended to  the  Ferry  and  to  the  beach. 
Then  was  added  the  Van  Ness  avenue 
line  to  the  exposition,  then  the  Stockton 
street  line,  the  Columbus  avenue,  the 
Presidio  and  Ferries,  the  California 
street  and  the  Chestnut  street,  the  latter 
skirting  the  exposition. 

San  Francisco's  Municipal  Railways 
probably  hold  the  record  in  the  United 
States  for  rapid  and  substantial  growth. 
Today  the  road  is  in  a  healthy  financial 
condition,  and  in  fact  it  has  never  known 
a  deficit.  Its  accounts  are  kept  abso- 
lutely according  to  the  system  pre- 
scribed by  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission  and  approved  by  the  State 
Railway  Commission,  and  it  is  run  on  a 
strictly  civil  service  basis.  After  indi- 
cating what  the  road  would  pay  in  taxes 
and  other  expenses  if  privately  owned, 
it  is  still  shown  that  it  is  making  money. 
Already  it  has  redeemed  $101,000  worth 
of  its  outstanding  bonds. 

Mr.  Cashin,  the  superintendent,  be- 
longs to  the  Elks,  the  Fresno  Sequoia 
Club  and  the  Indoor  Yacht,  Transporta- 
tion and  Olympic  Clubs  of  San  Fran- 
cisco.    He  is  unmarried. 


246 


JOHN  BERTRAND  CLAYBERG 


FORTY  strenuous  years  has  Judge 
John  Bertrand  Clayberg  spent  as  a 
member  of  the  legal  fraternity — 
forty  years  that  have  brought  to 
him  mani'fold  honors  and  a  varied  ex- 
perience. One-time  chief  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  Commission  of  Montana,  he 
is  also  considered  an 
expert  on  mining  and 
irrigation  laws  and  for 
years  has  lectured  on 
those  subjects  in  some 
of  the  leading  univer- 
sities of  the  country. 

Judge  Clayberg  was 
born  October  8,  1853, 
at  Cuba,  Illinois.  His 
father  was  George 
Clayberg,  a  farmer, 
and  his  mother  Eliza- 
beth (Baughman) 
Clayberg.  He  was 
educated  in  the  public 
schools  of  his  birth- 
place and  in  1875  was 
awarded  the  degree  of 
LL.  B.  by  the  Univer- 
sity of  Michigan.  Prom 
1874  until  1876  he  was 
in  the  office  of  Thomas 
M.  Cooley  of  Ann  Ar- 
bor, the  eminent  judge 
and  author  and  at 
that  time  dean  of  the 
law  department  of  the 
University  of  Michi- 
gan, employed  in  writ- 
ing notes  and  preparing  memoranda  for 
Judge  Cooley's  works  on  Taxation  and 
Torts,  which  have  been  considered  au- 
thority on  those  subjects  for  many 
years.  He  was  admitted  to  the  bar  at 
Ann  Arbor  March  20,  1875. 

Upon  leaving  Judge  Cooley's  office. 
Judge  Clayberg  opened  law  offices  in 
Lansing,  Michigan,  in  partnership  with 
S.  L.  Kilbourne.  A  year  later  he  re- 
moved to  Alpena,  Michigan,  and  formed 
a  partnership  with  Robert  J.  Kelley. 
This  continued  five  years,  when  it  was 
dissolved  and  Judge  Clayberg  went  into 
association  with  George  H.  Sleator. 

In  the  fall  of  1884  Judge  Clayberg 
came  west  to  Helena,  Montana,  and 
became  a  law  partner  of  Thomas  H. 
Carter.  "When  Carter  went  to  Congress, 
in  1889,  Judge  Clayberg  formed  a  new 
association  with  N.  W.  McConnell,  Chief 
Justice  of  the  Montana  Supreme  Court. 
The  same  year,  1889,  Judge  Clayberg 
was  honored  by  the  appointment,  com- 
ing from  Governor  Preston  B.  Leslie, 
to  the  office  of  Attorney  General  of 
the  Territory  of  Montana. 

After  admitting  to  the  partnership 
M.  S.  Gunn,  Judge  Clayberg's  firm  in 
1894  opened  a  branch  office  in  Butte. 
Then  followed  various  changes  until 
September,  1912,  when  Judge  Clayberg 
removed  to  San  Francisco,  where  he 
continues  to  practice  in  partnership 
with  Welles  Whitmore. 

Judge  Clayberg  has  appeared  in  vari- 
ous cases  of  great  importance,  particu- 
larly in  Montana.  He  was  in  the  famous 
Drum-Lummon  mining  litigation,  which 
was  litigated  most  vigorously  by  many 
prominent  mining  lawyers  of  the  United 


States  for  twenty-seven  years,  and  dif- 
ferent phases  of  which  went  to  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court  six  or 
seven  times.  In  this  litigation  the  Su- 
preme Court  finally  established  many 
important  points  In  mining  law.  He 
also  was  In  the  A.  J.  Davis  will  case 
at  Butte,  wherein  was 
involved  an  estate  val- 
ued at  about  $10,000,- 
000.  Bob  Ingersoll  was 
associated  with  him  as 
one  of  the  attorneys. 
This  litigation  extend- 
ed over  22  years  and  in 
its  various  phases  was 
before  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Montana  some 
ten  or  twelve  times. 
Several  millions  of  dol- 
lars also  was  involved 
in  the  long  drawn-out 
litigation  between  P. 
Augustus  Heinze  and 
the  Amalgamated  Cop- 
per Company,  covering 
a  period  of  ten  years. 
During  this  entire 
litigation  Judge  Clay- 
berg was  counsel  for 
Heinze. 

In  1903  Judge  Clay- 
berg was  appointed 
chief  of  the  Supreme 
Court  Commission  of 
Montana,  which  was 
organized  for  the  pur- 
pose of  assisting  the  Supreme  Court  in 
deciding  a  great  accumulation  of  cases 
and  in  clearing  its  calendar.  During  the 
two-year  existence  of  this  commission 
Judge  Clayberg  wrote  some  87  of  the 
opinions  of  this  court,  which  may  be 
found  in  volumes  28  to  32  of  the  Mon- 
tana reports. 

In  1891  Judge  Clayberg  was  called 
to  lecture  on  mining  law  in  the  law 
department  of  his  alma  mater,  Univer- 
sity of  Michigan,  and  for  24  years  con- 
tinued as  non-resident  lecturer  there. 
About  1903  he  added  to  his  course  lec- 
tures on  irrigation  law.  He  also  lec- 
tured on  mining  law  at  Columbia 
University,  and  from  1903  to  1905  at 
the  Montana  School  of  Mines  at  Butte. 
He  gave  Stanford  University  a  course 
of  lectures  on  extra-lateral  rights  in 
1913,  and  in  1914  lectured  on  the  Drum- 
Lummon  mining  litigation  before  the 
law  department  of  the  University  of 
California.  By  invitation,  he  read  pa- 
pers on  the  law  of  "Percolating  Water" 
before  the  San  Prancisco  Bar  Associa- 
tion. He  is  the  author  of  the  article  on 
"Mines  and  Minerals"  published  in  the 
Cyclopaedia  of  Law  and  Procedure 
(commonly  known  as  "Cyc"),  which  is 
considered  as  authority  on  the  subjects. 
He  has  contributed  liberally  to  legal 
publications  for  the  past  quarter  of  a 
century. 

Judge  Clayberg  organized  a  law  de- 
partment at  the  University  of  Montana 
in  1911  and  was  made  honorary  dean, 
filling  the  chair  of  mining  law  and 
code  pleadings  until  1912.  He  is  still 
consulting  dean  and  lecturer  on  mining 
law  for  the  institution. 


247 


ALFRED  AUSTEN  COHEN 


THE  province  of  an  attorney  at 
law  is  just  as  he  himself  defines 
it.  He  may  restrict  liimself  to 
the  preparation  and  trial  of  le- 
gal issues  after  the  controversy  has 
reached  tlie  point  where  only  a  court 
can  settle  it;  he  may  act,  rather,  in 
an  advisory  capacity, 
with  the  idea  of  fore- 
stalling lawsuits  or  of 
compromising  without 
going  into  court  at  all 
— or  he  may  make  of 
himself  a  combination 
of  lawyer  and  business 
promoter,  thereby  as- 
suming   a   double    role. 

Alfred  Austen  Cohen 
has  extended  his  oper- 
ations as  an  attorney 
so  as  to  include  all  of 
these.  When  he  was 
but  21  years  old  he  or- 
ganized and  financed 
the  Jamaica  Storage 
"Warehouse  Company 
in  New  York  City, 
with  $100,000  capital 
stock,  fully  paid  up. 
Within  the  past  year 
he  has  promoted  suc- 
cessfully the  $1,000,000 
Independent  Ice  &  Cold 
Storage  Company  of  San  Francisco, 
which  bids  fair  to  become  one  of  the 
largest  corporations  of  its  kind  on  the 
Pacific  Coast. 

Born  November  4,  1886,  in  New  York 
City,  Mr.  Cohen  is  the  son  of  Koppel 
Cohen,  a  builder,  and  Anne  (Rosenthal) 
Cohen.  He  attended  the  public  schools 
and  the  Jamaica  High  School  of  New 
York  City,  and  from  there  went  to  tlie 
law  school  of  the  University  of  Denver. 
After  about  a  year  at  this  institution  he 
continued  his  studies  at  the  Brooklyn 
Law  School  of  St.  Lawrence  University, 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  and  finished  the  course 
in  1907. 

It  was  just  after  he  finished  school 
that  Mr.  Cohen,  seeing  the  opportunity 
to  launch  a  w^arehouse  enterprise,  or- 
ganized the  Jamaica  Storage  Ware- 
house Company,  of  which  he  became 
president  and  general  manager.  In  the 
succeeding  four  years  he  became  prom- 
inent in  this  field  of  business,  being  a 
member  of  the  executive  committee  of 
the  New  York  Furniture  Warehouse- 
men's Association.  He  still  represents, 
in  a  legal  way,  a  number  of  warehouse 
concerns,  and  occasionally  writes  legal 
opinions  on  such  matters  for  storage 
warehouses  all  over  the  country. 

In  1911  Mr.  Cohen  came  to  Nevada  and 
was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  October  of 
that  year  before  the  Supreme  Court  at 
Carson  City.   A  few  days  later  he  gained 


admittance  also  before  the  Supreme 
Court  of  California  at  Sacramento.  He 
practiced  at  Reno,  however,  until  June 
1,  1913,  when  he  came  to  San  Francisco 
and  opened  offices  here.  While  in  Ne- 
vada he  was  attorney  for  a  number  of 
corporations,  among  thom  the  Union  Oil 
Company  and  the  Pa- 
cific Telephone  &  Tele- 
graph Company.  He  is 
at  present  general 
counsel  for  several 
corporations  in  this 
city,  and  also  is  the  le- 
gal representative  of 
the  San  Francisco 
Property  Owners'  As- 
sociation. 

After  a  year  of  pre- 
liminary work  and  ne- 
gotiations, Mr.  Cohen 
caused  to  be  incorpo- 
rated June  4,  1915,  the 
Independent  Ice  &  Cold 
Storage  Company,  by 
the  aid  of  Eastern  cap- 
ital. Tlie  capitalization 
of  $1,000,000  is  fully 
paid  up  and  the  con- 
cern will  begin  actual 
operations  as  soon  as 
its  factory  is  com- 
pleted. At  the  outset 
the  company  will  confine  itself  largely 
to  a  development  of  the  local  mar- 
ket, but  later  on  it  will  extend  its 
business  throughout  the  State.  It  ex- 
pects to  offer  strong  competition  in 
the  manufacturing  and  sale  of  ice  and 
in  the  maintenance  and  operation  of 
cold  storage  wareliouses.  Mr.  Cohen  is 
a  director  of  the  new  corporation  and 
its    general    attorney. 

Mr.  Cotien  is  a  member  of  the  San 
Francisco  Bar  Association,  the  San 
Francisco  Commercial  Club,  the  New 
York  Society  of  California  and  of  the 
Independent  Order  of  B'nai  B'rith.  He 
was  married  in  San  Francisco  April  21, 
1915,  to  Edna  B.  Sonnenfeld,  daughter 
of  Abraham  and  Ida  Meyer  Brown,  and 
resides  at  the  Richelieu  Hotel.  His  of- 
fices are  in  the  Insurance  Exchange 
building. 

Although  he  may  be  classed  among 
the  younger  generation  of  San  Fran- 
cisco attorneys,  Mr.  Cohen  has  already 
carved  out  for  himself  a  career  that 
many  older  members  of  his  profession 
might  well  envy.  He  has  found  a  happy 
combination  of  abilities.  He  was  long 
enough  in  business  to  learn  its  tenets 
as  thoroughly  as  he  has  learned  those 
of  the  profession  of  the  law.  And  with 
such  a  "stock  in  trade,"  many  more  big 
things — things  that  ultimately  will 
prove  a  gi-eat  benefit  to  the  communi- 
ty— may  well  be  expected  of  him. 


248 


FRANCIS  M.   COLVIN 


ALL)  the  World  admires  a  self-made 
man.  The  one  who  fights  his  way 
alone  against  adversity  in  hew- 
ing out  a.  career  has  certain  at- 
tributes not  found  in  the  individual 
who  gets  assistance  over  the  rough 
places.  And  they  are  attributes  which 
have  much  to  do  with 

our  civilization.  • r — 

Had  Francis  Marion 
Colvin,  San  Francisco 
attorney,  been  over- 
chary  in  his  youth  of 
soiling  his  hands  with 
work  or  of  burning  the 
midnight  oil  over  some 
volume  of  learning — 
this  story  probably 
would  not  be  told.  But 
he  was  not,  so  long 
as  he  gained  the  end 
he  sought. 

Francis  M.  Colvin 
was  born  March  21, 
1870,  on  a  farm  in  Os- 
wego County,  New 
York,  son  of  John  C. 
Colvin  and  Susan  B. 
(Wallace)  Colvin.  The 
winter  months  found 
him  at  school  and  the 
summer  months  he 
spent  helping  his 
father  till  the  farm. 
Time  that  might  have 
been  passed  in  play  he 
employed  in  clearing  land  and  plowing, 
and  hauling  tan-bark  and  railroad  ties 
with  an  ox  team.  Thus  he  learned,  when 
still  a  mere  boy,  what  it  meant  to 
work  for  what  he  received.  At  times 
he  "hired  out"  as  farm  hand  to  neigh- 
bors. The  job  always  was  tough,  the 
pay  always  slight;  but  what  pennies 
he  could  spare  went  for  books,  which 
he    read    with    avidity. 

How  hard  earned  was  Mr.  Colvin's 
money  may  be  illustrated  by  a  story. 
One  winter  there  was  an  unusually 
heavy  snowfall  and  the  snow  banked 
up  five  or  six  feet  deep  on  the  school- 
house  and  outbuildings.  Fearing  it 
would  cause  damage  the  school  trustees 
employed  young  Colvin  to  shovel  it  off. 
The  work  was  difficult,  the  climbing 
dangerous;  but  the  boy  accomplished 
It  satisfactorily,  whereupon  he  received 
— twenty-flve  cents.  And  to  collect  the 
money  he  had  to  walk  twelve  miles 
through  the  snow  for  an  order  from 
the  school  clerk,  return  it  to  the  trus- 
tees for  their  signatures,  take  it  back 
to  the  clerk  to  be  signed  by  him,  then 
present  it  to  the  school  treasurer  for 
payment! 

When  thirteen  years  old  Mr.  Colvin 
left  home  to  make  his  own  way.  He 
continued  attending  school  and  work- 
ing at  odd  jobs,  by  which  he  managed 
to  support  himself.  At  fifteen  he  began 
a  course  at  Leonardsville  Academy, 
Leonardsville,  New  York,  working  his 
way  through  in  three  years.  He  spe- 
cialized in  pedagogy,  and  after  passing 


the  examinations  was,  at  the  age  of 
eighteen,  a  licensed  school  teacher.  His 
first  school  was  at  East  Winfleld,  New 
York,  where  he  taught  a  year,  then  re- 
moved to  Nebraska  and  taught  there 
another  year.  The  Far  West  attracted 
him  and  he  went  to  Western  Washing- 
ton, where  he  taught 
eight  years  more. 

Mr.  Colvin  was  es- 
sentially  of  that 
sturdy  type  of  school- 
master who  sets  an 
example  of  thrift  as 
well  as  of  conduct  be- 
fore his  pupils.  Dur- 
ing the  vacation 
period  he  worked  the 
harder.  One  year  he 
donned  overalls  and 
secured  a  place  as  la- 
borer on  the  grading 
of  the  C.  B.  &  Q.  Rail- 
road in  Nebraska.  An- 
other he  labored  in  a 
brickyard;  again  he 
lived  the  rough  life  of 
the  logging  camp;  and 
still  again  he  pushed  a 
wheelbarrow  on  the 
grade  of  the  Seattle, 
Lake  Shore  &  Eastern 
Railroad.  In  Wash- 
ington he  successfully 
handled  real  estate  and 
insurance  as  a  side 
line  and  one  year,  between  school  sea- 
sons, pursued  the  same  work  in  San 
Francisco. 

Where  there  is  a  determination  to 
succeed,  there  usually  is  a  way.  Mr. 
Colvin  found  it  by  taking  up  two 
Government  claims  of  320  acres,  one 
a  homestead.  The  latter  was  in  the 
midst  of  a  dense  forest  four  miles 
from  the  nearest  neighbor  and  in  order 
to  perfect  his  title  Mr.  Colvin  was 
obliged  to  build  a  cabin  and  live  there. 
He  broke  a  trail  through  virtually 
primeval  woods  and  spent  upward  of 
six  years  in  this  sylvan  retreat.  There 
was  where  the  plucky  schoolmaster 
really  learned  the  value  of  good  books 
as  companions.  Carrying  his  books 
into  the  woods  on  his  back  he  delved 
into  them,  gaining  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  general  literature.  At  the  same 
time  he  became  an  expert  woodsman 
and    horseman. 

Abandoning  teaching  in  1898,  Mr.  Col- 
vin traveled  for  a  year  selling  furni- 
ture. His  spare  moments  he  had  spent 
studying  law.  In  1899  he  became  a 
student  in  the  office  of  John  W.  James 
of  Anaconda,  Montana,  working  in  the 
copper  mills  to  pay  his  way.  Subse- 
quently he  attended  Northern  Indiana 
University,  graduated  and  entered  the 
law  department  of  Yale,  which  awarded 
him  his  LL.B.  in  June,  1905.  After 
several  months  of  special  study  he  was 
admitted  to  the  bar  in  California  in 
1906  and  has  since  practiced  law  in  San 
Francisco  with  ever-increasing  success. 


249 


HENRY  LYSANDER   CORSON 


IF  a  man  is  to  accomplish  anything' 
in  liis  struggle  with  the -world,  he 
must  have  the  backing  of  capital, 
which  may  be  either  money  or  a 
certain  amount  of  "inother  wit."  Just 
how  mucli  capital,  and  what  sort,  is 
required  to  attain  success  depends 
largely  upon  the  man 
himself.  Some  men 
have  been  enabled  to 
get  a  start  with  as  lit- 
tle as  a  dollar;  in  the 
case  of  some  others, 
ten  thousand  dollars 
would  not  be  half 
enough. 

When  Henry  Lysan- 
der  Corson,  now  a  San 
Francisco  attorney  at 
law,  started  out  to  se- 
cure a  practical  educa- 
tion in  the  D  i  r  i  g  o 
Business  College  at 
Augusta,  Maine,  h  i  s 
father  gave  him  $100. 
Thereafter  he  made  his 
own  way,  teaching 
school  that  he  might 
attend  school,  and 
otherwise  bestirring 
himself  for  a  liveli- 
hood. 

Mr.  Corson  was  born 
on   a    farm    in   Canaan, 
Maine,     July     26,     1870. 
His    parents    were    Ly- 
sander    Hartwell    Cor- 
son and  Susan  C.  (Mor- 
rison)   Corson  and  was  the  youngest  of 
a  family  of  seven,   nearly   all  of  whom 
came    to    California    in    the    early    days 
and  still  reside  here. 

Following  his  early  education  in  the 
public  schools  of  Canaan,  Mr.  Corson 
went  to  Augusta  to  attend  business  col- 
lege. When  he  was  graduated  from 
this  institution,  in  1S89,  he  was  plan- 
ning on  a  business  career,  but  six 
months  as  a  baker's  employe  caused 
him  to  change  his  mind  and  to  de- 
cide that  his  education  was  incom- 
plete. 

Mr.  Corson  was  naturally  precocious 
in  his  books.  He  had  not  been  enabled 
to  attend  school  between  the  age  of  13 
and  17,  but  when  he  did  get  the  op- 
portunity he  took  full  advantage  of  it. 
He  attended  East  Corinth  Academy  at 
East  Corinth,  Maine,  for  a  time,  then 
taught  for  about  a  year  in  country 
schools,  two  terms  at  Skowegan  and 
one  term  at  Clinton.  Wishing  to  pre- 
pare himself  for  college  he  entered  Hig- 
gins'  Classical  Institution  at  Charles- 
ton, largely  because  a  school  teacher  of 
his  youth  was  then  principal  there.  He 
was  graduated  from  Higgins'  in  1892 
with  the  college  preparatory  degree, 
being  one  of  the  Institution's  first 
alumni. 

Finances — or,  rather,  the  lack  of 
them — still  stood  between  Mr.  Corson 
and  the  coveted  college  course.  To 
overcome  this  he  went  back  to  teach- 
ing. For  a  year  he  was  principal  of 
the     high     school     at     New     Vineyard, 


Maine,    thereafter    accepting    a    better 
position    as    principal    of    the    Standish, 
Maine,    high    school,    and    after   another 
year  going  to  a  still  better  post  as  prin- 
cipal  of  the   high   school  at  York   Har- 
bor,  Maine.     Then,   being   in   a   position 
to  carry  out  his  plans,  he  matriculated 
at     Colby     College     of 
Waterville,       Maine, 
Which     graduated    him 
in  1898  with  the  degree 
of  A.  B.     While  in  col- 
lege    Mr.     Corson     be- 
came a  member  of  the 
Chi      Chapter      of     the 
Zeta      Psi       fraternity, 
and    -was    particular- 
ly    active     in     student 
affairs.     His  class  was 
the    largest    that    had 
ever   entered   Colby   up 
to   that   time,    and   it 
carried    away    with    it 
more  championships  of 
various  kinds  than  any 
preceding     class.       Al- 
though   not   an   athlete 
himself,    Mr.    Corson 
was     elected     general 
manager  of  the  college 
athletics     for     a    year. 
He   managed   the   foot- 
ball team  of  '97,  which, 
for    the    first    time    in 
Colby's    history,    over- 
came   every    eleven    in 
sight,  losing  not  a  sin- 
gle game. 
Leaving  Colby,  Mr.  Corson  began  his 
study   of   the   law   in   the   ofHces   of  Ed- 
mund P.  Webb   of  Waterville,   then  one 
of    the    be.st-known    lawyers    in    Maine. 
Soon    afterward    Mr.     Webb    died,    and 
Senator    Charles    F.    Johnson    took    over 
his   offices.      With   him  Mr.   Corson  con- 
tinued   his    studies    until    he    was    ad- 
mitted   to    the    bar   before    the    Supreme 
Court   of   Maine   at   Bath   on   August   28, 

1900,  after  which  he  practiced  his  pro- 
fession  in  Waterville  for  about  a  year. 

In  1901  Mr.  Corson  came  west  to  Cal- 
ifornia  and    was    married    February    21, 

1901,  to  Miss  Eva  Carolyn  Shorey  of 
Oakland,  who  was,  and  still  is,  well 
known  as  a  singer.  He  was  admitted  to 
the  practice  of  law  in  California  May 
4,  1901,  and  a  month  or  so  later  opened 
offices  in  San  Francisco,  where  he  has 
continued  in  general  law  practice  ever 
since,  with  considerable  corporation  and 
probate  work.  Today  he  is  president 
and  general  counsel  of  the  Gold  Star 
Mining  Co.,  general  counsel  for  the 
King  Placer  Mining  Co.,  and  has  been 
counsel  for  the  Knights  of  the  Mac- 
cabees. He  is  past-president  of  the 
State  of  Maine  Society  of  California 
and  a  member  of  the  Iroquois  Club,  has 
held  various  offices  in  the  fraternal  or- 
ders of  the  Masons,  Druids  and  Macca- 
bees, and   is  a  Knights  Templar. 

Mr.  Corson  is  a  nephew  of  the  late 
Dighton  Corson,  a  renowned  lawyer, 
once  Attorney  General  of  Nevada  and 
later  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  South  Dakota. 


250 


JOSEPH  B.  CORYELL 


FOR  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury Joseph  Belleau  Coryell  has 
been  a  part  of  the  business  life  of 
San  Francisco  and  California. 
Starting-  in  in  a  small  way,  he  has  ad- 
vanced step  by  step  until  today  his  in- 
terests are  among  the  most  important 
in  the  State.  And  he 
has  acquired  them  all 
by  keen  f  o  r  e  s  i  g-  h  t, 
close  application  and 
the  ability  to  grasp  an 
opportunity  when  it 
appeared  to  him. 

Wlien  the  late  E.  H. 
Harriman,  some  years 
ago,  was  just  begin- 
ning' to  extend  his 
holdings  in  the  T\^est. 
and  at  a  time  when  he 
needed  a  representa- 
tive of  proved  ability 
on  this  coast,  he  chose 
Mr.  Coryell  as  the  man 
for  the  place.  Subse- 
quently Mr.  Coryell  did 
much  valuable  work 
for  the  railroad  mag- 
nate. One  of  the  direct 
results  was  that  he 
was  offered  the  pres- 
idency of  a  railroad, 
but  this  he  declined, 
preferring  to  devote 
himself  to  his  private 
projects.  He  is  still  in- 
terested in  Harriman 
affairs. 

A  native  of  San  Francisco,  Mr.  Coryell 
was  born  June  4,  1S71.  His  father  was 
Dr.  John  R.  Coryell,  at  one  time  a  wide- 
ly-known physician,  and  his  mother 
was  Zoe  Christine    (Belleau)    Coryell. 

Following  his  education  Mr.  Coryell, 
after  casting  about  for  a  bit,  looking 
over  the  field  with  an  eye  to  the  future, 
decided  that  the  real  estate  business  of- 
fered unusual  advantages.  Accordingly 
he  opened  a  real  estate  office  in  San 
Francisco  in  18S8.  Real  estate  has  been 
his  forte  ever  since,  although  he  had 
branched  out  in  a  number  of  other  di- 
rections as  an  investor. 

In  the  course  of  his  activities  Mr. 
Coryell  began  pondering  over  the  prob- 
able growth  of  the  city  and  the  direc- 
tions in  which  it  was  most  likely  to  ex- 
pand. Land  that  he  believed  to  be  well 
situated  he  acquired,  and  it  ■was  not 
long  before  his  prognostications  began 
coming  trvie.  Today  he  owns  more  spur- 
track  property  than  any  other  man  in 
San  Francisco. 

It  is  largely  by  reason  of  his  opera- 
tions on  Islais  Creek,  however,  that 
Mr.  Coryell  has  become  locally  famous 
for  his  keen  business  foresight.  "Nerve" 
is  the  only  word  that  expresses  the 
opinion  of  San  Francisco  financiers  and 
realty  dealers  when  first  they  saw  Mr. 
Coryell  begin  the  acquirement  of  the 
blocks  of  mud  flats  on  the  south  side  of 
Islais  Creek.  No  man,  they  reasoned, 
could  possibly  risk  his  money  on  those 
unsightly  swamps  unless  he  were  pos- 
sessed of  colossal  nerve. 


This  Mr.  Coryell  had,  without  doubt. 
And  the  very  ones  who  declared  at  the 
time  that  the  future  was  too  uncertain 
to  risk  such  an  investment,  have  long 
since  expressed  their  complete  respect 
for  the  wisdom  of  the  man;  for  the 
new  San  Francisco  harbor  project  on 
Islais  Creek  has  be- 
come a  reality,  for 
which  condemnations 
have  been  carried  on 
under  what  is  known 
as  the  India  Basin  Act 
by  the  State  of  Cali- 
fornia. 

With  his  wonderful 
foresight  Mr.  Coryell 
saw,  what  everyone 
else  seemed  blind  to, 
that  nowliere  else  on 
the  San  Francisco  wa- 
terfront were  there 
lands  available  in  the 
future  for  manufac- 
turing purposes.  He 
saw,  too,  tliat  the  ter- 
minal building  opera- 
tions of  the  three 
great  transcontinental 
railroads  entering  Cal- 
ifornia must,  of  neces- 
sity, group  themselves 
about  Islais  Creek 
especially  since  the 
franchise  for  the 
Southern  Pacific  and 
the  Santa  Fe's  joint 
line  on  Kentucky 
street  bound  the  two  railroads  to  build 
a  steel  drawbridge  over  the  Islais  chan- 
nel on  demand. 

He  could  not  overlook  this  assembling 
of  railroad  terminal  facilities  in  the 
heart  of  the  only  waterfront  land  left 
in  San  Francisco  available  for  factory 
purposes;  nor  that  the  interests  around 
Islais  Creek,  railroad,  lumber  and  the 
like,  already  established,  were  going  to 
demand  the  clearing  and  deepening  of 
that  waterway.  Here  was  in  sight  a 
combination  of  land  and  water  shipping 
facilities  unequaled  anywhere.  To  a 
far-seeing  man  like  Mr.  Coryell  the  pos- 
sibilities w^cre  obvious. 

He  had  the  nerve  to  back  his  judg- 
ment and  the  initiative  to  put  it  into  ef- 
fect. He  was  alone  in  both.  He  is  the 
only  man  who  has  spent  his  money  to 
improve  lands  on  San  Francisco's  wa- 
terfront in  anticipation  of  the  coming 
large  influx  of  manufacturers.  And  as 
a  result  of  his  purchases  on  Islais  Creek 
he  is  now  the  largest  individual  owner 
of  waterfront  sites  in  San  Francisco, 
and  the  owner  of  the  only  waterfront 
property  now  available  for  factories. 
No  one  else  owns  any  free  waterfront 
property  in  this  city.  All  the  rest  is 
held  either  by  the  State,  the  city  or  by 
private  corporations  which  are  making 
use  of  it. 

To  men  of  stanch  hearts  and  un- 
swerving loyalty  and  hope — men  like 
Joseph  B.  Coryell — San  Francisco  owes 
her  bigger  and  better  existence  as  the 
metropolis  of  the  West. 


251 


JOHN  HAMMOND  CRABBE 


NOWHERE,  perhaps,  can  one 
crowd  so  much  varied  experience 
into  so  short  a  period  as  in  the 
newspaper  "game."  Becoming- 
familiar,  as  one  does,  with  every  walk 
of  life,  seeing-  men  with  all  their  foibles 
and  hidden  characteristics  bared  to  the 
gaze — no  wonder  such 
a  profession  makes  for 
worldly  wisdom.  And 
by  virtue  of  this  wis- 
dom does  it  generally 
make  for  success  in 
another  sphere  later 
on. 

John  Hammond 
C  r  a  b  b  e  ,  attorney  at 
law,  rounded  out  his 
education  by  a  turn  in 
the  newspaper  b  u  s  1  - 
ness.  For  14  months 
he  was  city  editor  of 
the  Chico  Daily  Enter- 
prise and  for  8  months 
more  a  reporter  on  the 
Woodland  Mail;  he  still 
is  a  newspaper  man  in 
a  way,  for  since  1905 
he  has  held  credentials 
of  the  Northern  Press 
Syndicate. 

Born  October  14, 
1880,  at  Charlottetown, 
Prince  Edward  Island, 
Mr.  Crabbe  is  the  son 
of  William  and  Lavinia 
Emily  (Prowse) 
Crabbe.  In  1884  he 
came  with  his  parents  to  California 
and  later  attended  school  at  Nimshew, 
Butte  County.  Subsequently  the  family 
removed  to  a  place  on  Butte  Creek  and 
Mr.  Crabbe  was  obliged  to  ride  horse- 
back about  seven  miles  over  two 
mountain  ranges  to  West  Branch  school 
in  Big  Chico  Canyon.  Moving  again  in 
1896  to  Chico,  Mr.  Crabbe  was  graduated 
from  the  grammar  schools  in  1900  and 
entered  the  Chico  State  Normal,  fin- 
ishing in  January,  190.5.  To  pay  his 
own  "way,  he  vi^orked  in  the  saw  mills 
during  vacation.  He  was  very  active 
during  his  Normal  course.  He  was 
captain  of  the  football,  baseball  and 
basketball  teams;  member  of  the  track 
team;  president  of  the  associated  stu- 
dent body  and  of  the  Ilakawinn  De- 
bating Society;  delegate  to  the  Sacra- 
mento Valley  Interscholastic  Athletic 
League;  editor  of  the  Normal  Record 
and  for  a  year  Normal  reporter  on  the 
Chico  Enterprise. 

Also,  during  four  years,  Mr.  Crabbe 
was  a  member  of  Company  A,  Second 
Regiment  Infantry,  National  Guard  of 
California,  and  as  such  served  a  month 
in  Oakland  and  San  Francisco  follow- 
ing the  1906  fire.  He  served  seven 
years  with  the  Chico  "Volunteer  Fire 
Department  and  for  a  year  was  its 
foreman,  as  well  as  member  of  the 
hose  team  that  held  the  State  record 
for  racing.  He  received  a  certificate 
of  exemption  from  engine  company 
No.  2. 

In  March,  1907,  after  two  years  as  a 
newspaper  man,  Mr.  Crabbe  came  to 
San  Francisco  and  took  a  course  in 
stenography    from    the    San    Francisco 


Business  College.  After  several  months 
in  mercantile  establishments  he  was 
employed,  in  February,  1908,  as  ste- 
nographer and  law  clerk  for  John 
O'Gara,  then  assistant  district  attorney. 
He  studied  law  at  odd  moments  and  in 
the  evenings  and  was  admitted  to  the 
bar  May  13,  1910,  in  the 
District  Court  of  Ap- 
peal in  San  Fran- 
cisco. He  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  U.  S. 
District  and  Circuit 
Courts  May  14,  1910. 
Until  January,  1912,  he 
practiced  and  at  the 
same  time  acted  as 
clerk  for  leading  law- 
yers of  the  city.  He 
then  opened  offices  for 
himself  at  947  Pacific 
building. 

Mr.  Crabbe  confines 
himself  largely  to  civil 
practice,  particularly 
probate  and  contract 
law.  He  has  been  re- 
tained in  several  cases 
of  note;  within  five 
years  after  beginning 
practice  he  was  re- 
tained by  one  side  or 
the  other  in  personal 
injury  damage  suits 
aggregating  more  than 
$100,000.  He  was  one 
of  the  two  attorneys 
who  represented  La- 
vinia Crabbe,  as  administratrix  of  the 
estate  of  William  R.  Crabbe,  in  a  dam- 
age suit  against  the  Mammoth  Channel 
Gold  Mining  Company,  in  which  a  Butte 
County  jury  awarded  a  unanimous 
verdict  of  $20,000,  the  largest  personal 
injury  damages  ever  given  in  the 
County.  The  case  was  the  first  prose- 
cuted under  the  Workman's  Compensa- 
tion law. 

Another  hard-fought  case  in  which 
Mr.  Crabbe  was  employed  was  that  in- 
volving the  competency  of  Mrs.  Louella 
Noonan  Stapleton.  Mr.  Crabbe  and  his 
associates,  after  an  eight-day  jury  trial 
in  San  Francisco,  succeeded  in  restoring 
to  competency  their  client,  who  owned 
property  worth  about  $100,000.  He  is 
also  one  of  the  attorneys  in  an  impor- 
tant will  contest  pending  in  Buchanan 
County,  Missouri,  and  in  a  similar  ac- 
tion pending  before  the  Superior  Court 
of  San  Diego  County,  California. 

Mr.  Crabbe  has  traveled  extensively, 
professionally  and  for  pleasure.  He  is 
prominent  in  the  Masons,  belonging  to 
King  Solomon's  Lodge  No.  260,  F.  &  A. 
M. ;  King  Solomon's  Chapter  No.  95,  R. 
A.  M. ;  California  Commandery  No.  1,  K. 
T. ;  and  Islam  Temple  of  Shriners;  he 
holds  membership  also  in  the  San  Fran- 
cisco Bar  Association,  California  State 
Automobile  Association,  American 
Automobile  Association,  Mentor  Asso- 
ciation and  the  Betsy  Ross  Memorial 
Association  of  Philadelphia.  He  is  a 
lover  of  the  best  in  literature,  art  and 
music  and  enjoys  motoring  as  a  relaxa- 
tion. He  was  married  in  San  Francisco 
in  1908  to  Mary  Freeman  Armstrong. 


252 


CHARLES   H.   CROCKER 


THE  correct  way  thoroughly  to 
learn  a  business  or  profession  is 
to  start  in  at  the  bottom  and 
work  one's  way  upward  until  the 
highest  pinnacle  is  attained.  The  man 
who  does  this  is  reasonably  certain  that 
when  he  at  length  reaches  the  goal  he 
will  be  able  to  main- 
tain himself  there;  the 
man  who  gets  there  by 
the  money  or  influence 
route  is,  on  the  other 
hand,  as  the  insurance 
agent  would  say,  a  de- 
cidedly bad  risk. 

When  H.  S.  Crocker, 
founder  of  the  flourish- 
ing publishing  and  sta- 
tionery house  of  H.  S. 
Crocker  Company,  in- 
troduced into  the  busi- 
ness his  son,  Charles 
Henry  Crocker,  he  en- 
couraged the  young 
man  to  begin  right  at 
the  beginningand  work 
his  way  up.  Charles 
H.  Crocker  heeded  the 
advice  and  followed  it. 
Today  he  is  at  the  head 
of  the  business. 

Mr.  Crocker  was  born 
August  29,  1865,  at 
Sacramento,  in  whose 
public  schools  he  re- 
ceived his  early  train- 
ing. When  nine  years  old  he  came  to 
San  Francisco  with  his  parents  and  at- 
tended the  public  schools  of  this  city, 
matriculating  in  1883  at  the  University 
of  California.  He  was  graduated  in  1887 
with  the  degree  of  A.  B.  His  business 
training  began  at  once. 

The  house  of  Crocker  was  established 
in  1856  at  Sacramento.  In  1872  the 
San  Francisco  branch  was  opened  and 
gradually  the  branch  outgrew  the 
parent  establishment,  although  the  lat- 
ter is  still  maintained.  In  1S90  the 
business  was  incorporated  under  the 
name  of  H.  S.  Crocker  Company.  In 
1912  the  stationery  and  publishing  con- 
cern of  Cunningham,  Curtiss  &  Welch 
of  San  Francisco  and  Los  Angeles  was 
purchased.  This  gives  the  Crocker 
company  three  houses,  those  at  San 
Francisco  and  Sacramento  under  its 
own  name  and  that  at  Los  Angeles  re- 
taining the  name  of  Cunningham,  Cur- 
tiss &  Welsh  Company. 

At  the  outset  the  present  Mr.  Crocker 
became  an  apprentice  in  his  father's 
lithographing  department.  There  was 
no  favoritism  shown  him,  no  lessening 
of  his  work  because  he  was  the  pro- 
prietor's son.  Successively,  he  passed 
through  the  printing,  binding,  en- 
graving and  stationery  branches,  then 
gained  experience  as  a  clerk  and  at 
length,  proving  his  general  capability, 
was  elected  one  of  the  company  di- 
rectors. Subsequently  he  became  treas- 
urer, then  vice-president,  and  upon  the 
death  in  1904  of  his  father,  assumed  the 
presidency. 


A  great  deal  of  the  satisfying  growth 
of  the  combined  concern  has  been  due 
to  the  unremitting  work  of  Mr.  Crocker. 
Today  the  H.  S.  Crocker  Company  is 
the  largest  of  its  kind  west  of  Chicago. 
Its  stationery,  manufacturing  and 
selling  department  is  one  of  the  largest 
in  the  United  States 
and  it  owns  the  biggest 
and  most  up-to-date 
printing  plant  this  side 
of  St.  Louis.  Its  book 
stock  runs  into  the  mil- 
lions and  it  also  does 
a  large  business  in  of- 
fice furniture  and  fix- 
tures. 

What  with  the  ex- 
ceptional service  the 
company  has  given  in 
the  past,  together  with 
an  even  better  service 
at  present  made  pos- 
sible by  an  extension 
of  its  plant,  "Crocker 
Quality"  has  come  to 
have  a  great  deal  of 
significance.  Every 
contract  accepted  by 
the  H.  S.  Crocker  Com- 
pany in  printing,  bind- 
ing and  lithographing 
is  manufactured  com- 
plete in  its  own  fac- 
tory*, by  skilled  me- 
chanics; and  every 
bit  of  work  passes  through  hands  of  ex- 
acting inspectors  to  insure  its  faultless- 
ness  and  worth.  This  firm  is  the  pioneer 
railroad  ticket  printer  of  the  west. 
Crocker  lithographs  and  blank  books, 
like  Crocker  stationery,  are  recognized 
as  standard.  Its  plant,  housed  in  two 
immense  Class  A  buildings,  contains 
more  than  140,000  square  feet  of  floor 
space,  well  lighted,  airy  and  scrupu- 
lously clean. 

Mr.  Crocker  is  president  of  the  H.  S. 
Crocker  Realty  Company  in  addition  to 
being  president  of  the  H.  S.  Crocker 
Company  of  San  Francisco  and  Sacra- 
mento and  of  Cunningham,  Curtiss  & 
Welch  Company  or'  Los  Angeles;  he  is 
vice-president  of  the  American  National 
Bank  and  the  Italian-American  Bank  of 
San  Francisco  and  of  the  Giant  Powder 
Company,  Consolidated;  and  a  director 
of  the  Union  Sugar  Company,  the 
Alameda  Sugar  Company  and  the  Agri- 
cultural Credit  Corporation. 

He  is  affiliated  with  no  fraternities, 
but  is  a  life  member  of  the  Olympic 
Club,  commodore  of  the  Pacific  Motor 
Boat  Club  and  holds  active  membership 
in  the  Bohemian  Club,  San  Francisco 
Press  Club,  San  Francisco  Commercial 
Club  and  Belvedere  Golf  and  Country 
Club.  He  is  chairman  of  the  convention 
committee  of  the  National  Association 
of  Stationers,  which  met  in  San  Fran- 
cisco in  October,  1915. 

Mr.  Crocker  was  married  in  1905  at 
Del  Monte  to  Carlotta  L.  Steiner.  His 
home  is  at  Belvedere. 


253 


GEORGE  E.  CROTHERS 


So  replete  has  been  the  career  of 
Georg-e  Edward  Crothers,  Judge  of 
the  Superior  Court  of  San  Fran- 
cisco, with  those  matters  considered 
as  really  worth  while,  that  to  do  justice 
to  a  narration  of  them  would  require  a 
volume.  And  even  then  the  half  would 
not  be  told. 

Born  May  27,  1870,  at 
Wapello,  Iowa,  he  came 
with  his  parents  to  San 
Jose,  California,  when 
he  was  13  years  old  and 
attended  the  public 
schools  of  the  latter 
place.  He  entered  Ice- 
land Stanford  Junior 
University  upon  its 
orig-inal  opening'  day 
and  received  the  de- 
gree of  A.  B.  in  1895  in 
the  departments  of 
history  and  political 
science  with  its  "pion- 
eer" class  and  the  A.  M. 
degree  in  1896  in  its 
law    department. 

In  1896  he  was  ad- 
mitted to  practice  law 
in  the  State  and  Fed- 
eral courts.  He  en- 
joyed a  flourishing' 
practice  in  partnership 
with  his  brother,  T.  G. 
Crothers,  until  his  ap- 
pointment without  so- 
licitation to  the  Superior  bench  August 
12,  1913. 

Judge  Crothers,  before  this,  was  one 
of  the  three  attorneys  of  record  for 
the  executors  and  trustees  in  the  cele- 
brated litigation  over  the  trust  and 
properties  of  the  estate  of  the  late 
Senator  James  G.  Fair  from  1899  to 
1902  and  had  personal  charge  of  the 
forgery    branch    of    the    litigation. 

Under  commission  from  Mrs.  Leland 
Stanford,  Judge  Crothers  and  his  broth- 
er drafted  the  new  section  of  the  State 
Constitution  relative  to  Stanford  Uni- 
versity, besides  several  legislative  acts 
and  amendments  to  the  University  char- 
ter, and  prepared  re-conveyances  of  the 
entire  endowment  of  the  institution 
under  the  new  terms  and  pursuant  to 
the  constitutional  amendment.  These 
and  other  steps  were  to  remedy  defects 
in  the  form  of  the  endowment  grants 
and  in  the  terms  of  the  trusts  constitut- 
ing the  cliarter  of  the  University,  some 
of  which,  according  to  a  subsequent  Su- 
preme Court  decision,  would  have 
been  fatally  defective  to  the  title  of 
the  University  and  its  great  endow- 
ment. 

To  forestall  litigation  after  Mrs. 
Stanford's  death.  Judge  Crothers  and 
his  brother  in  1903  drafted  and  secured 
the  passage  of  an  act  similar  to  the 
McEnerney  Act,  pursuant  to  which  his 
brother  brought  suit  on  behalf  of  the 
University  trustees  against  Mrs.  Stan- 
ford and  all  the  world  to  establish  the 
validity  of  the  University  titles  and 
the  terms,  validity  and  legal  effect  of 


the  University  trust  conditions.  The 
judgment  in  this  special  proceeding  is 
now  the  final  authority  governing  the 
actions  of  the  University  trustees  and 
its  management. 

During  the  closing  years  of  Mrs. 
Stanford's  life  Judge  Crothers  admin- 
istered, as  sole  trustee, 
a  trust  involving  about 
$6,000,000,  and  con- 
veyed it  to  the  Uni- 
versity at  her  death 
without  there  having 
been  one  word  of  pub- 
lic comment  to  excite 
litigation.  This  saved 
to  the  University  Ije- 
tween  $2,000,000  and 
$3,000,000,  owing  to  the 
law  preventing  the 
giving  of  more  than  a 
third  of  an  estate  for 
charitable  or  educa- 
tional purposes  by  will. 
It  likewise  made  a  le- 
gal contest  futile.  And 
althougli  he  had  acted 
as  attorney  for  the 
University  Trustees  in 
the  settlement  of  the 
estate,  he  asked  only 
the  same  consideration 
for  his  work  and  re- 
sponsibility in  both  the 
special  trust  and  the 
estate  as  "was  shown 
each  of  the  other  two  attorneys  in  the 
matter  of  the  estate  alone,  ignoring  tiie 
large  fees  allowed  him  by  the  legal 
Code,  wiiich  were  the  same  as  those  al- 
lowed  executors. 

One  of  the  important  amendments  to 
the  University  charter,  validated  by  Mr. 
Crothers'  work,  'was  one  limiting  the 
term  of  ofiice  of  trustees  thereafter  ap- 
pointed or  elected  to  ten  years.  He 
and  WhitelawReid  were  appointed  trus- 
tees by  Mrs.  Stanford  October  3,  1902, 
and  were  the  first  to  serve  ten-year 
terms  under  this  provision.  Judge 
Crothers  was  the  first  graduate  to  be 
selected  as  a  trustee.  He  also  inaugu- 
rated a  plan  whereby  the  Alumni  Ad- 
visory Board  will  liereafter  nominate  a 
succession  of  graduates  of  the  Univer- 
sity as  trustees.  Judge  Crothers  is  tlie 
only  graduate  of  Stanford  to  be  selected 
twice  as  president  of  tlie  alumni  asso- 
ciation. 

Judge  Crothers'  educational  activities 
have  covered  an  unusually  wide  field. 
He  lias  been  vice-president  of  the  As- 
sociation of  American  Universities,  is 
chairman  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of 
the  San  Francisco  State  Normal  School, 
and  trustee  of  tlie  Stanford  Kindergar- 
ten Trust,  which  maintains  five  kinder- 
gartens in  San  Francisco,  and  of  the 
Stanford  Union.  He  is  a  member  of 
various  societies  and  organizations  of 
national  scope. 

His  endorsement  for  re-election  in 
1914  to  the  Superior  bench  by  the  San 
Francisco  Bar  Association  was  by  the 
highest  vote  given  any  candidate. 


254 


t 


ALLEN  A.   CURTIS 


BOYS  and  girls  of  today  little  re- 
alize, when  they  trudge  from 
their  homes  a  block  or  two  to  a 
convenient  schoolhouse,  what  it 
meant  to  their  fathers  and  grandfathers 
half  a  century  and  more  ago  to  acquire 
an  education.  Not  then,  as  now,  was 
the  schoolhouse  just 
around  the  corner. 
Oftentimes  it  was 
many  w  e  a  r  y  miles 
away;  and  the  farmer 
lad  who  sought  book 
learning  in  the  forties 
and  fifties  of  the  last 
century  must  needs 
have  within  him  a 
steadfast  determina- 
tion to  better  his  lot. 
The  character  of  Al- 
len Allsopp  Curtis 
needs  no  better  intro- 
duction than  the  state- 
ment that  while  he  was 
obtaining  his  early 
education  he  walked  to 
school  three  miles, 
then  walked  home 
again  and  for  one  year 
walked  five  miles  each 
way.  This  statement 
explains  the  whole  of 
Mr.  Curtis'  subsequent 
career. 

Allen  A.  Curtis  w^as 
not  only  a  mining 
pioneer  in  Nevada  but 
a  redwood  lumber 
pioneer  in  California.  He  was  born 
November  1,  1838,  near  Belleville,  Essex 
County,  New  Jersey.  His  father  was 
Melville  Curtis,  a  native  of  Newton, 
Lower  Falls,  Massachusetts,  and  one 
of  nine  brothers,  all  of  them  paper 
manufacturers.  Mr.  Curtis'  mother  was 
born  of  English  parents  at  Quebec, 
Canada,  her  father  being  Commissary 
General  and  a  prominent  landowner. 
She  was  a  direct  descendant  of  the 
Morris  brothers  of  Revolutionary  war 
fame,  one  of  them,  Gouverneur  Morris, 
casting  his  lot  with  the  Colonies  while 
the  other  remained  loyal  to  King 
George. 

In  September,  1859,  Mr.  Curtis  came 
to  California  by  way  of  the  Isthmus. 
Making  his  way  to  Sacramento  he  'was 
clerk  in  a  hardware  store  there  until 
March,  1865,  when  he  went  to  Austin, 
Nevada,  to  take  up  silver  mining. 
Nevada  in  those  days  ^vas  far  different 
than  the  Nevada  of  today  and  it  was 
only  the  hardiest  of  pioneers  that  went 
there. 

Mr.  Curtis  first  was  secretary  of  a 
mining  company  at  Austin.  It  was  not 
long  before  his  ability,  perseverance 
and  integrity  were  recognized  and  in 
1868  he  was  made  superintendent  and 
manager  of  the  concern.  He  continued 
to  forge  ahead  until  in  1871  he  owned 
a  controlling  interest  in  tlie  property — 
six  years  after  he  started  in  the  busi- 
ness. For  several  years  he  was  suc- 
cessful in  mining.  Then  came  the 
demonetization  of  silver,  and  this  so 
reduced  the  value  of  the  mining  prop- 
erty   that    Mr.    Curtis    closed    out    his 


Nevada  interests  in  1885.  During  the 
seventeen  years  that  Mr.  Curtis  man- 
aged the  property,  however,  it  pro- 
duced silver  to  the  value  of  $16,000,000. 
While  he  was  the  projector  in  the 
erection  of  a  quartz  mill  at  Mineral 
Hills,  Elko  County,  Nevada,  and  its 
manager  for  several 
years,  Mr.  Curtis  did 
not  devote  all  his  time 
to  wresting  silver 
from  the  earth — but 
branched  out.  He  be- 
came half  owner  in  the 
firm  of  Paxton  &  Cur- 
tis, which  owned  banks 
at  Austin,  Eureka,  Bel- 
mont and  Reno,  Ne- 
vada. These  banks 
met  all  claims  against 
them  during  the  panic 
caused  by  the  tem- 
porary closing  of  the 
Bank  of  California  of 
San  Francisco.  Mr. 
Curtis  also  was  part- 
ner in  the  firm  of 
Gage,  Curtis  &  Com- 
pany, which  operated 
a  large  merchandise 
store   at   Austin. 

When,  in  1885,  Mr. 
Curtis  disposed  of  his 
Nevada  holdings,  he 
returned  to  California 
and  opened  a  large 
redwood  lumber  plant 
in  the  then  virgin 
forests  of  Eel  River,  Humboldt  County. 
The  plant  in  which  he  was  interested 
and  which  he  managed  was  the  nucleus 
for  the  town  of  Scotia.  To  connect 
Scotia  with  the  outside  world  a  rail- 
road was  constructed  by  the  company 
to  Alton  along  the  Eel  River  bluffs. 
This  redwood  plant  then  was  the  larg- 
est in  California.  Mr.  Curtis  closed 
out  his  interests  there  in  1902  and  since 
has  become  interested  in  two  redwood 
plants   in   Mendocino   County. 

His  Humboldt  County  railway  ven- 
ture was  preceded  by  his  construction 
and  operation  of  a  narrow  gauge  rail- 
road from  the  terminus  of  the  Nevada 
Central  Railroad  at  Reese  River  Valley 
to  the  mines  of  Lander  Hill  in  the 
Loyabe  range  through  Austin,  Nevada. 
Mr.  Curtis  also  was  at  one  time  county 
treasurer  for  Lander  County,  Nevada, 
and  at  another  time  its  county  com- 
missioner and  built  the  Episcopal 
Church  at  Austin.  He  was  instrumen- 
tal in  the  founding  of  the  Bank  of 
Eureka  and  the  Savings  Bank  of  Hum- 
boldt County  at  Eureka,  California,  and 
was  a  director  in  each  several  years,  as 
he  was  also  of  the  Santa  Rosa  Bank 
at   Santa   Rosa,   California. 

Wide  recognition  of  his  ability  has 
come  to  Mr.  Curtis.  At  the  dedication 
of  the  Nevada  State  pavilion  at  the 
Panama-Pacific  Exposition  he  was  re- 
ferred to  as  "a  Nevada  pioneer  of 
whom  we  are  justly  proud."  At  present 
his  interests  lie  in  several  California 
corporations,  among  them  the  Glen 
Blair  Redwood  Company  and  the  Pa- 
cific Coast  Redwood  Company. 


255 


DR.   M.    C.   M.    SCARES    d'ALBERGARIA 


THERE  is  enough  of  romance  in 
the  life  of  Dr.  M.  C.  M.  Soares 
d'Albergaria  to  furnish  material 
for  a  set  of  gripping  volumes, 
for  though  a  son  of  wealthy  parents, 
people  of  leisure,  he  has  from  the  be- 
ginning made  his  own  way;  and  there 
is  enough  of  versatil- 
ity in  Dr.  d'Alberga- 
ria's  character  to  com- 
mand the  deepest  in- 
terest. Mine  operator 
and  dealer,  autlaor, 
editor,  manufacturer, 
doctor  of  medicine  and 
of  philosophy,  and  art 
connoisseur  and  col- 
lector of  rare  works  of 
the  masters — he  has 
been  the  central  figure 
in  a  decidedly  unusual 
career,  and  today  is  a 
successful  business 
man  in  San  Francisco. 
Born  in  186S  in  Hor- 
ta,  Portugal,  Dr.  d'Al- 
bergaria comes  of  a 
house  widely  known  in 
Europe  and  one  which 
gives  him  entry  to  the 
most  exclusive  circles. 
His  father  was  the  Earl 
T.  Cardozo  M.  Soares 
d'Albergaria  of  Portu- 
gal, and  his  mother 
Lady  Louiza  de  la  Cer- 
da  (Bettencourt)  d'Al- 
bergaria. Dr.  d'Alber- 
garia is  a  cousin  of  the  Marquis  Fur- 
neHes  and  the  Baron  de  Roches  of 
Portugal,  as  well  as  of  the  Viscount 
de  Borges  da  Silva  of  the  Azores,  and 
the  late  General  Roque,  major-general 
of  the  Portuguese  army,  and  also  of  the 
Ariagos,  late  of  the  presidency  of  Port- 
ugal, and  of  the  Lady  Cardozo  of  Horta. 
Yet  he  is  purely  and  simply  an  Ameri- 
can— and  strictly  without  the  hyphen. 
Following  a  period  of  instruction  un- 
der the  direction  of  private  tutors. 
Dr.  d'Albergaria  ran  away  from  home 
when  twelve  years  old  and  came  to  the 
United  States.  He  had  read  numerous 
alluring  hooks,  in  which  the  '^''estern 
United  States  was  described  as  fairly 
teeming  with  Indians,  and  as  a  land 
where  gold  lay  around  just  waiting  to  be 
picked  up.  The  young,  imaginative  boy 
determined  to  shoot  a  few  Indians  and 
gather  up  a  stock  of  gold  for  himself. 

His  first  stop  was  New  Bedford,  Mas- 
sachusetts. From  there  he  went  to  New 
York,  then  came  on  to  California.  For 
three  years  he  made  his  way  here,  do- 
ing anything  he  could  find  to  do,  and 
attending  school  at  San  Ramon  in  or- 
der to  learn  the  English  language.  Then 
he  went  to  Australia  whence,  after  a 
short  time,  he  went  back  to  Portugal — 
still  a  boy,  l)ut  with  many  of  his  illu- 
sions shattered.  There  followed  trips 
through  Germany  and  other  parts  of 
Europe,  to  New  York,  to  San  Francisco, 
to  .Japan  and  China  and  on  around  the 
world  again:  Dr.  d'Albergaria  has  cir- 
cled the  globe  three  times. 


About  fifteen  years  ago  he  returned 
to  San  Francisco.  He  began  dealing  in 
mines,  buying,  operating  and  selling 
thein  again,  in  California,  Nevada  and 
Idaho.  Three  or  four  years  before  the 
1906  fire  he  started,  as  a  side  issue,  a 
perfumery  business  in  San  Francisco. 
Before  long  he  had 
486  stations  in  the 
United  States  supply- 
ing agents  eve  r  y  - 
where.  The  fire  all  but 
wiped  out  this  busi- 
ness and  for  two  years 
Dr.  d'Albergaria  was 
abroad.  But  in  1909  he 
came  back  once  more 
and  resumed  his  min- 
ing operations,  at  the 
same  time  entering  the 
manufacturing  field. 

Today  he  is  presi- 
dent of  the  Fayalense 
Mining  &  Milling  Co., 
London  Mining  &  De- 
velopment Co.,  Puama 
Mining  Co.,  Saw  Pal- 
metto Mining  Co.,  and 
others,  and  sole  owner 
of  the  d'Albergaria 
Manufacturing  Co.  of 
San  Francisco,  New 
York,  Chicago  and  St. 
Louis,  manufacturers 
of  fire  department  sup- 
plies and  several  other 
commodities,  and  also 
the  North  Star  and 
Black  Warrior  mines  on  the  Mother 
Lode. 

Dr.  d'Albergaria's  fame  as  an  art  con- 
noisseur is  the  result  of  riany  years  of 
collecting.  He  owns  Catelo's  "Mid- 
night Scene  on  the  Ocean,"  which  art- 
ists such  as  Tojetti,  Emilian  Schoole  of 
Vienna,  and  the  late  Benjamin  Constant 
have  pronounced  the  most  realistic 
marine  painting  in  the  world.  It  was 
presented  to  his  grand-uncle  by  Queen 
Maria  Pia,  late  Queen  of  Portugal.  It  is 
valued  at  $40,000.  Other  gems  in  his  col- 
lection, which  probably  is  worth  in  the 
aggregate  $250,000,  are  masterpieces  by 
Benjamin  Constant,  A.  Schreyer,  Jose 
Madroso,  Jacques,  Artz  and  Portuni. 
Art  lovers  from  all  over  visit  him  to 
gaze  upon  these  treasures. 

In  1S9S  Dr.  d'Albergaria  wrote  and 
published  in  English  the  romance  of 
"Sanche  de  Bazan,"  a  work  that  en- 
joyed a  large  sale  and  which  was  trans- 
lated into  Spanish,  French  and  German. 
He  has  also  written  prolifically  for 
magazines  and  newspapers  and  is  at 
present  president  and  editor-in-chief  of 
Western  Life  and  the  Optimist,  two 
weekly  publications  of  editorial  com- 
ment issued  in  San  Francisco. 

Although  he  is  an  accredited  doctor 
of  medicine,  Dr.  d'Albergaria  has  prac- 
ticed in  the  profession  only  for  a  short 
period,  and  that  in  the  late  nineties. 
What  with  his  business  and  editorial 
duties,  and  his  relaxation  in  the  field  of 
art,  he  today  finds  his  time  fully  oc- 
cupied. 


256 


JAMES  R.   DAVIS 


THERE  will  ever  be  romance  in  the 
story  of  a  mining  camp.  The 
very  nature  of  the  thing  maizes 
for  it.  Men  flock  there  with  tlie 
single  determination  to  wrest  from  tlie 
earth  that  which  will  make  them  im- 
mune thereafter  from  the  petty  strug- 
gles of  existence.  Some 
make  their  stake  and 
go  on  their  way  rejoic- 
ing. Some  fail,  and  the 
failures,  no  doubt,  are 
in  most  cases  largely 
in  the  majority. 

Of  all  the  big  gold 
"strikes"  that  have 
had  this  country 
agog  at  one  time  or 
another,  that  at  Gold- 
field,  Nevada,  at  the 
beginning  of  the  pres- 
ent century,  stands 
among  those  of  the 
deepest  popular  inter- 
est. For  one  thing,  it 
was  close  to  home. 
For  another  thing, 
many  of  the  details  of 
its  history  -were  un- 
precedented. 

James  R.  Davis, 
president  of  the  Round 
Mountain  Mining  Com- 
pany, is  classified 
among  "the  big  men  of 
Goldfield."  Fortune  smiled  upon  him. 
Years  of  prospecting  over  a  vast  extent 
of  likely  looking  territory  were  crowned 
at  last  by  tlie  most  surprising  success. 
And  by  brains  and  backbone  he  has 
made  of  his  success  something  to  be 
proud  of. 

To  begin  at  the  beginning,  James  R. 
Davis  is  a  native  of  Indiana,  born  at 
Columbus,  December  16,  1870.  His 
father  was  Thomas  C.  Davis,  a  farmer, 
and  his  mother  Martha  L.  (Ferguson) 
Davis.  When  he  was  young  his  parents 
moved  to  the  little  town  of  Minneapolis, 
Kansas,  and  in  its  public  school  Mr. 
Davis  secured  an  education.  He  was 
but  15  years  old,  however,  when  he  left 
school  and  home  and  started  out  to  do 
for  himself. 

Making  his  way  to  Denver,  Mr.  Davis 
studied  pharmacy  for  two  years.  Min- 
ing appealed  to  him  more  than  the 
drug  business,  however,  and  he  started 
out  with  a  prospector's  outfit  to  hunt 
gold  in  the  Sangre  de  Cristo  range  in 
Colorado.  When  he  had  money  he 
prospected;  when  he  didn't  have  money 
he   mined   for  others. 

Until  1895  Mr.  Davis  mined  in  Colo- 
rado, with  varying  success.  He  then 
worked  his  way  westward  to  Arizona 
and  California.  The  winter  of  1.S95-6 
he  spent  at  Randsburg,  Kern  County, 
California,  and  from  there  he  mined 
and  prospected  on  up  through  the  Pana- 
mlnt  range,  since  made  famous  by 
numerous  magazine  stories,  and  into 
the  Death  Valley  country.  This  con- 
sumed the  years  up  to  1900,  when  Mr. 


Davis  went  to  Nome,  Alaska,  for  a  six- 
months'   sojourn. 

The  long  hoped-for  "strike"  did  not 
come.  Mr.  Davis  worked  his  way  back 
to  Oregon,  thence  to  California,  and  the 
year  1902  found  him  in  Tonopah,  Ne- 
vada. This  heralded  the  turn  of  the 
tide.  After  prospect- 
ing in  and  about  Tono- 
pah and  the  bordering 
desert  until  1904,  Mr. 
Davis  went  to  Gold- 
field,  which  was  just 
beginning  to  come  into 
notice.  He  was  one  of 
the  pioneers  in  the  new 
field,  the  big  rush  not 
coming   until    1905. 

With  J.  P.  Loftus, 
now  of  Hollywood, 
Cal.,  Mr.  Davis  took 
what  was  known  as 
the  Loftus-Davis  lease 
on  the  Sandstorm  mine. 
In  November,  1904, 
they  made  their  first 
strike,  one  of  the  rich- 
est surface  finds  ever 
known  in  Goldfield. 
Ore  taken  from  the 
first  round  of  holes 
blasted  after  the  big 
strike  ran  on  an  aver- 
age $5,000  to  the  ton. 
In  four  months  Sand- 
storm netted  Loftus  and  Davis  $140,000 
profit. 

All  this  sounds  like  the  wildest  fiction. 
As  a  matter  of  fact, it  isGoldfield  history. 
Then  Mr.  Davis  and  his  partner  took 
a  lease  on  the  Combination  Fraction 
mine,  the  richest  lease  in  the  group. 
In  four  months  it  produced  $350,000. 
In  1906,  with  C.  H.  Botsford,  Loftus 
and  Davis  took  an  option  on  the  Com- 
bination mines  for  $4,000,000.  They  sold 
it  two  weeks  later  to  the  Goldfield  Con- 
solidated, realizing  a  profit  of  100,000 
shares  of  Consolidated  worth  then  $9 
a  share — $900,000! 

Immediately  after  this  Mr.  Davis 
bought  the  controlling  interest  in  the 
Round  Mountain  Gold  Mine,  60  miles 
north  of  Tonopah,  with  Loftus.  It  was 
then  simply  a  little  prospect  hole,  not 
producing.  The  price  was  $87,500,  with 
five  months  in  which  to  pay.  In  these 
five  months  the  mine  paid  for  itself; 
it  has  since  produced  about  $2,750,000 
and  Mr.  Davis  remains  president  of  the 
company.  By  taking  over  the  Nevada 
Hills  mine  at  Fairview,  Nevada,  about 
the  time  he  acquired  the  Round  Moun- 
tain, Mr.  Davis  made  another  handsome 
profit.  This  mine,  in  which  he  sold 
his  interests  in  1910,  has  produced 
$2,500,000.  The  Round  Mountain  is  still 
a  big  producer,  giving  up  about  $400,000 
a  year.  It  is  the  richest  property  in 
the  To-qui-ma   range. 

Mr.  Davis,  in  addition  to  his  other 
interests,  is  today  a  director  of  the 
Pioneer  Mines  Company  at  Towle, 
Placer  County,  Cal.,  and  of  the  Traffic 
Oil  Company. 


257 


S.  C.  DENSON 


D 


a  T^O  unto  others  as  you  would  like 
to  have  them  do  unto  you;  do 
a  good  act  whenever  the  op- 
portunity offers  the  chance, 
and  never  do  an  injustice  or  avoidable 
injury  or  unkindness  to  another;  be 
square  in  all  your  actions  and  always 
speak  the  truth,  and, 
finally,  practice  charity 
— not  merely  by  giving 
alms,  but  in  judging 
the  acts  and  motives 
of  otliers.  This  is  my 
conception  of  true  reli- 
gion, and  I  think  a  man 
who  adheres  strictly  to 
it  will  not  go  to  a  very 
bad  place  in  the  future 
state." 

This,  in  a  nutshell, 
is  the  creed  of  S.  C. 
Denson,  formed  after 
more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury in  the  practice  of 
law  in  the  capacities 
of  judge,  prosecutor 
and  simple  attorney. 
It  stands  today  as  the 
retrospect  of  an  inter- 
esting and  fulsome  ca- 
reer, bearing  directly 
on  a  subject  upper- 
most in  Judge  Den- 
son's  mind — the  proper 
punisliment  of  those 
who  break  our  laws. 

In  odd  liours  Judge  Denson  has  writ- 
ten a  book,  publislied  in  1914  under 
the  title  "Our  Criminal  Criminal  Law," 
in  which  he  sets  fortli  the  problem  of 
the  so-called  "criminal"  as  he  lias 
found  it.  His  belief — and  it  is  no 
hurried  conclusion — is  that  we  go  about 
the  punishment  of  lawbreakers  in  a 
way  that  degrades  them  rather  than 
works  toward  their  cure  or  reforma- 
tion. By  shutting  them  up  and  forc- 
ing them  to  live  in  tlie  very  idleness 
tliat  doubtless  helped  make  for  their 
undoing  in  tlie  first  place.  Judge  Denson 
contends,  we  take  away  from  convicts 
their  chance  of  rejuvenation. 

If  a  man  is  wholly  and  irrevocably 
bad,  says  Judge  Denson,  he  sliould  be 
done  away  with  entirely.  But  if  he  is 
not — and  most  of  them  are  not — he 
should  be  given  a  chance  to  feel  that 
he  can  work  liis  way  back  to  his  for- 
mer position.  And  this  can  be  attained 
by  letting  him  work  for  a  stipulated 
salary,  his  sentence  being  that  he  must 
earn  so  much  money  to  regain  his  free- 
dom. This  would  make  it  possible  for 
those  dependent  upon  him  to  live  in  the 
interim. 

Judge  Denson  was  born  September, 
1839,  on  a  farm  near  Quincy,  Illinois, 
the  son  of  John  Denson  and  Emily 
(Crawford)  Denson.  He  went  from  the 
log  schoolhouse  to  the  brick  school- 
house  near  his  home,  then  in  1857  en- 
tered Abingdon  College  in  Knox  Coun- 
ty,   Illinois.     He    left    in    1860,    just    be- 


fore graduation,  and  came  behind  an  ox 
team  across  the  broad  plains  to  Cali- 
fornia. 

Stopping  at  Oroville,  then  a  flourish- 
ing mining  town.  Judge  Denson  mined, 
did  odd  jobs,  and  finally  entered  the 
law  offices  of  Joseph  Lewis  and  Thomas 
Wells  as  a  clerk.  For 
three  years  he  studied 
law,  was  admitted  to 
the  bar  in  1864  and  im- 
mediately opened  an 
office  in  Carson  City, 
Nevada.  He  was  a 
member  of  the  first 
Nevada  legislature  and 
was  elected  District 
Attorney.  In  December, 
1868,  he  returned  to 
California. 

Locating  tliis  time 
in  Sacramento,  Judge 
Denson  became  a  law 
partner  of  Judge  H.  O. 
Beatty,  father  of  the 
late  Chief  Justice  of 
tlie  Supreme  Court  of 
California.  In  1876  he 
was  elected  District 
Judge  of  the  Sixth  Dis- 
trict; four  years  later, 
when  the  new  consti- 
tution established  a 
Superior  Court,  he  be- 
came Judge  of  the  lat- 
ter body,  continuing  so 
for    three   years,    when    he    resigned. 

Until  1888  Judge  Denson  was  a  part- 
ner of  William  H.  Beatty,  in  that  year 
elected  Chief  Justice.  In  1889  Judge 
Denson  came  to  San  Francisco.  He 
has  since  been  a  member  of  various 
partnerships,  including  one  with  Judge 
John  J.  De  Haven,  and  at  present,  with 
his  son,  H.  B.  Denson,  and  A.  E.  Cooley 
is  senior  partner  in  the  firm  of  Den- 
son, Cooley  &  Denson. 

Judge  Denson  has  specialized  in  cor- 
poration and  land  law  and  has  ap- 
peared in  numerous  court  cases  of  note. 
One  of  these  was  a  suit  in  equity,  to 
recover  the  50,000  acre  Norris  ranch  at 
Sacramento.  There  was  involved  about 
$2,500,000  and  Judge  Denson  won  after 
taking  the  case  to  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court.  Anotlier  notable  case 
was  the  partition  of  \  the  43,000  acre 
Chabolla  grant  in  Sacramento  and  San 
Joaquin  Counties,  wliicli  was  divided 
between  150  claimants.  Today  the  land 
is  worth  about  $8,600,000.  Judge  Den- 
son is  general  counsel  for  tlie  Pacific 
Coast  Steel  Company,  Pacific  Surety 
Company,  Charles  Nelson  Lumber  & 
Shipping  Co.,   and  several   otliers. 

For  eight  years  Judge  Denson  was 
chairman  of  the  board  of  trustees  of  the 
San  Francisco  Normal  School.  He  is  a 
past  grand  master  of  tlie  Masons  and 
prominent  in  the  order.  He  is  the 
fatlier  of  three  children,  Mrs.  D.  A. 
Ijindley  of  Sacramento,  Mrs.  George  M. 
Mott,  Jr.,  of  Oakland  and  H.  B.  Denson. 


258 


JOHN  T.  DONALDSON 


BEFORE  entering'  into  tlie  mining 
field,  John  T.  Donaldson,  president 
of  the  Phoenix  Gold  INlining-  Com- 
pany, had  already  attained  success 
in  two  other  pursuits — ranching-  and 
real  estate.  He  has  practically  given  up 
all  his  other  interests,  however,  and  to- 
day devotes  most  of  his 
time  to  the  develop- 
ment of  his  mines,  he 
being  also  controlling 
stockholder  in  the  Gold 
Star,  of  the  Alleghany 
district,  Sierra  County, 
which  has  already  pro- 
duced  $1,000,000. 

The  Phoenix  gold 
mine,  w^hich  is  being 
operated  right  along 
with  profit,  is  on  the 
famous  California 
Mother  Lode  in  the 
Nevada  City  district. 
It  is  situated  in  the 
center  of  what  is  con- 
sidered the  best  mining' 
section  in  the  world. 
The  Harmony  channel, 
which  runs  through  it 
for  a  distance  of  about 
a  mile,  should  produce 
from  $1,000,000  to 
$5,000,000,  and  on  one 
corner  of  the  property 
is  "the  famous  Selby 
flat,  from  which  so 
many  millions  of  dollars  were  taken  a 
few  decades  ago  in  surface  digging.  The 
Manzanita  mine,  with  a  record  of  pro- 
duction of  $10,000,000,  has  been  worked 
clear  up  to  the  Phoenix  boundary  line, 
and  a  mile  and  a  half  away,  also  on 
the  Mother  Lode,  is  the  well-known 
North  Star  mine,  which  has  produced 
more  than  $25,000,000  in  its  time. 

John  T.  Donaldson,  head  of  operations 
at  the  Phoenix,  is  a  native  of  Illinois. 
He  was  born  in  1865  near  Chicago  on 
the  farm  of  his  father,  George  W.  Don- 
aldson. His  mother  was  Fannie  (Mc- 
Donough)  Donaldson,  who,  with  her 
husband,  came  to  America  from  near 
Belfast,  Ireland.  Two  of  Mr.  Donald- 
son's maternal  ancestors  held  high  rank 
in  the  British  Army. 

Mr.  Donaldson  attended  the  public 
schools  near  his  home  and  when  about 
7  years  old  moved  west  with  his  par- 
ents and  settled  at  Livermore.  Subse- 
quently he  attended  Professor  Smith's 
College  at  Livermore  for  about  three 
years.  It  had  been  his  intention  to  be- 
come a  lawyer  and  he  delved  deep  into 
Blackstone  during  his  spare  moments. 
He  gave  up  these  plans,  however,  and 
did  not  take  the  necessary  examinations 
for  admittance  to  practice. 

About  1880,  after  leaving  school,  Mr. 
Donaldson  moved  with  his  parents  to  a 
ranch  in  the  southern  part  of  Monterey 
County,  where  he  and  his  father  began 
raising  stock.  For  a  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury he  remained  a  rancher,  continuing 
alone  after  the  death  of  his  father. 


Throughout  this  period  Mr.  Donaldson 
was  a  leader  in  Monterey  County  devel- 
opment, giving  of  both  time  and  money 
toward  the  general  upbuilding  of  the 
community  and  in  inducing  settlers  to 
locate  Government  land.  About  1890  he 
began  raising  the  first  wheat  ever 
grown  commercially  in 
Monterey  County  and  a 
few  years  later  intro- 
duced the  first  com- 
bined harvester  ever 
operated  there.  For  a 
time  it  was  necessary 
to  haul  the  wheat  crop 
60  miles  by  team  and 
wagon  to  Soledad,  then 
the  nearest  railway 
terminus. 

Abandoning  the 
ranching  business  in 
1905  Mr.  Donaldson  es- 
tablished himself  i  n 
Oakland  in  order  to 
give  his  children  the 
advantages  of  an  edu- 
cation. Meanwhile  he 
operated  extensively  in 
city  and  country  real 
estate. 

In  1907  Mr.  Donald- 
son evolved  an  idea 
which  since  has  found 
great  favor  among  the 
bankers — a  plan  for 
educational  insurance. 
The  project  was  that  his  company,  the 
National  Educational  Society,  should  put 
out  small  savings  banks  in  which  par- 
ents could  save  money  for  the  future 
education  of  their  children.  At  inter- 
vals the  smaller  depositories  were  to  be 
taken  to  a  designated  savings  bank  and 
the  contents  added  to  a  fund  which  was 
to  be  allowed  to  accumulate.  The  fund 
could  not  be  withdrawn  until  the  child 
was  16  years  old,  and  then  only  for  the 
purpose  of  furthering  its  education,  un- 
less, of  course,  the  child  died  before 
that  age,  when  the  money  became  a 
sort  of  life  insurance.  If  not  w^ithdrawn 
beforehand,  the  fund  was  to  be  allowed 
to  remain  in  the  bank  drawing  interest 
until  the  child  became  21  years  old, 
when  it  was  to  be  paid  over  if  desired. 
The  project  failed  because  of  the  fact 
that  it  was  overtaken  by  the  1907 
money  panic,  when  the  general  desire 
was  to  retrench.  The  idea  has  not  died, 
however,  for  some  of  the  banks  are  still 
perpetuating  it  and  find  it  of  great 
mutual  benefit. 

Mr.  Donaldson  was  married  in  1890  in 
San  Francisco  to  Cora  E.  Bresette  and 
is  the  father  of  five  children:  George  T. 
John  E.,  Raymond  L.,  Genevieve  and 
Albert  Donaldson.  George  T.  Donald- 
son, the  eldest,  now  aged  24,  is  manager 
of  the  Ogden  store  of  the  F.  W.  Wool- 
worth  Co.,  and  bears  the  distinction  of 
having  been  that  concern's  youngest 
manager.  John  E.  Donaldson  is  con- 
nected with  the  Oakland  Tribune,  and 
the  other  three  are  still  attending  school. 


259 


WALTER  E.  DORN 


ASIDE  from  his  professional  work, 
which  has  given  him  a  hig-h  stat- 
^  us  among  the  lawyers  of  San 
Francisco  and  California,  Walter 
E.  Dorn  has,  by  his  activities  in  another 
direction,  made  himself  known  from 
one  end  of  the  country  to  another  to 
literally  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  persons. 
This  is  in  connection 
with  his  upbuilding  of 
the  Loyal  Order  of 
Moose,  which  has 
awarded  him  the  high- 
est honors  in  its  power. 

Born  in  Watsonville, 
Santa  Cruz  County, 
California,  October  30, 
1870,  Mr.  Dorn  is  the 
son  of  N.  A.  J.  Dorn 
and  Rebecca  Ellen 
(Walters)  Dorn.  He 
attended  the  public 
schools  of  his  home 
city,  later  the  Watson- 
ville High  School,  and 
in  1895  was  graduated 
from  Hastings  College 
of  the  Law.  He  was 
admitted  to  the  bar  on 
May  25th  of  the  same 
year. 

Starting  out  to  prac- 
t  i  c  e  his  profession 
alone,  Mr.  Dorn  has 
done  so  ever  since. 
His  practice  has  been  of  a  general  civil 
nature  though  he  has  specialized,  in  a 
way,  in  commercial  law.  Today  he  is 
general  counsel  for  a  number  of  cor- 
porations of  more  than  ordinary  size 
and  importance. 

For  five  years,  beginning  with  1897, 
he  was  assistant  city  attorney  of  San 
Francisco  under  Franklin  K.  Lane,  the 
present  Secretary  of  the  Interior.  He 
is  a  stanch  Republican,  although  he 
confines  himself  to  working  for  the 
general  good  of  the  party  or  on  behalf 
of  a  friend,  seeking  no  reward  in  the 
shape  of  a  public  office  for  himself. 

A  little  more  than  five  years  ago — 
on  August  9,  1910,  to  be  exact — Mr. 
Dorn  organized  San  Francisco  Lodge 
No.  26,  Loyal  Order  of  Moose,  a  lodge 
that  was  to  enjoy  a  growth  no  less  than 
phenomenal.  Less  than  a  year  after  its 
formation  the  lodge  had  a  membership 
of  4,400  and  was  the  largest  of  any  kind 
in  the  world.  Mr.  Dorn  was  chosen  its 
first  dictator,  the  title  of  the  ruling 
officer. 

The  San  Francisco  lodge  had  made 
the  Loyal  Order  of  Moose  "sit  up  and 
take  notice."  The  Supreme  Convention 
was  impatient  to  see  the  dictator  of  the 
largest  lodge  and  said  so.  Mr.  Dorn 
accordingly  took  a  big  delegation  in 
July,  1911,  to  Detroit,  Michigan,  where 
the  Supreme  Convention  was  in  session, 
with  the  result  that  he  was  elected  su- 
preme prelate,  the  third  highest  office 
in  the  order. 


At  Kansas  City,  Missouri,  the  follow- 
ing year  Mr.  Dorn  went  up  another  step 
when  the  convention  chose  him  as  su- 
preme vice-dictator.  And  in  1913  at 
Cincinnati,  Ohio,  he  was  elected  su- 
preme dictator,  after  having  been  a 
member  of  the  Moose  only  three  years. 
This,  in  itself,  was  a 
record,  but  Mr.  Dorn 
later  was  to  set  a  still 
higher  one. 

Meanwhile  Mr.  Dorn 
had  served  a  year  and 
a  half  as  dictator  of 
the  San  Francisco 
lodge,  being  for  a  time 
both  dictator  and  su- 
preme prelate  until  he 
resigned  from  the 
lesser  office.  When  his 
term  as  supreme  dic- 
tator expired  in  Au- 
gust, 1914,  he  was 
made  a  member  of  the 
supreme  council,  the 
governing  body  of  the 
order,  which  is  com- 
posed of  the  supreme 
officers  and  eight 
other  elected  mem- 
bers. This  is  the  first 
time,  by  the  way, 
that  a  supreme  dic- 
tator of  the  Moose  has 
been  retained  in  the 
supreme  council. 
While  Mr.  Dorn  was  supreme  dictator 
he  organized  tlie  military  branch  of  the 
Moose  along  the  lines  of  the  United 
States  Army.  In  the  one  year  he  or- 
ganized 611  companies  in  as  many 
lodges  of  the  order,  and  formed  them 
into  regiments  of  twelve  companies 
each.  There  are  four  Moose  regiments 
in  California  alone  and  the  1,600  lodges 
of  Moose,  with  their  combined  mem- 
bership of  610,000,  have  in  their  drill 
teams  more  men  than  the  country's 
standing  army. 

Mr.  Dorn's  crowning  coup  came  with 
his  preparations  for  Moose  Day  at 
the  Panama-Pacific  International  Expo- 
sition on  July  25,  1915.  He  succeeded 
in  getting  out  for  the  parade  detach- 
ments of  the  Army  and  the  Navy  on 
a  Sunday,  thereby  breaking  a  rule  that 
had  been  in  force  for  the  past  sixty 
years.  Considering  the  rule  one  of 
convenience  rather  than  of  necessity, 
Mr.  Dorn  left  no  stone  unturned  to 
have  his  requests  granted.  He  w^ent 
to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  to  the 
Secretary  of  War  and  even  to  the  Vice- 
President — w^ho  is  himself  a  Moose — 
and  Congressmen  and  Senators  sent 
wire  after  wire  to  Washington  on  his 
behalf.  The  result  was  one  of  the  finest 
parades  of  the  exposition  year. 

Mr.  Dorn  belongs  to  a  number  of 
fraternal  orders  besides  the  Moose.  He 
was  married  August  17,  1895,  in  San 
Francisco  to  Ellen  J.  O'Reilly  and  is 
the  father  of  five  children. 


260 


JOHN  WEBSTER  DORSEY 


EVERY  business  or  professional  man 
who  is  kept  close  to  his  duties  is 
in  need   of  some  form  of  physical 
relaxation.     He  leaves  his  office  or 
establishment,  forgets  it  for  a  time  and 
comes  back  refreslied  not  only  in  body 
but  in  mind  as  well. 

John  Webster  Dor- 
sey,  for  many  years  a 
practicing  attorney  of 
San  Francisco,  takes 
his  relaxation  in  fish- 
ing and  hunting.  And, 
as  is  his  habit  in  other 
lines,  he  excels  in  both. 
When  he  goes  after 
game  he  usually  seeks 
big  game — and  gets  it. 
When  lie  fislies,  he 
casts  his  line  into  the 
deep  sea  and  hauls  out 
something  a  little 
smaller    than   a   whale. 

Most  of  Mr.  Dorsey's 
fishing  is  done  off  San- 
ta Catalina  and  Cle- 
mente  islands.  He  is  a 
member  of  the  Tuna 
Club  and  catclies,  be- 
sides tuna,  sword-flsh, 
yellow-tail,  black  sea 
bass  and  jew-fish.  In 
1912,  with  "William  B. 
Sharp,  he  effected  the 
biggest  catch  of 
sword-fish  ever  made 
in  a  similar  manner.  In  five  days  the  two 
caught  twelve  giant  sword-fish,  rang- 
ing in  weight  from  155  to  260  pounds 
apiece.  When  one  takes  into  consid- 
eration the  real  danger  that  lies  in 
this  sport,  the  feat  may  be  appreci- 
ated. 

In  trap-shooting  and  hunting  Mr. 
Dorsey  has  captured  numerous  medals 
and  trophies.  He  belongs  to  the  Em- 
pire Gun  Club  for  duck  shooting,  and 
in  fact  holds  membership  in  nearly 
every  organization  of  this  nature  in 
California.  Hunting  trips  to  Alaska 
have  brought  him  many  trophies  in  the 
way  of  moose,  caribou,  deer,  antelope 
and  other  big  game. 

Mr.  Dorsey  was  born  June  4,  1852,  on 
a  farm  in  Harford  County,  Maryland. 
His  father,  Algernon  Sidney  Dorsey,  was 
in  the  cattle  and  ranching  business  in 
California  in  the  early  fifties,  later  re- 
turning East.  His  mother  was  Mary 
Alice  (Webster)  Dorsey.  His  maternal 
grandfather  was  John  A.  Webster,  a 
cousin  to  Daniel  Webster.  John  A.  Web- 
ster distinguished  himself  in  the  war 
of  1S12  by  defending  the  City  of  Balti- 
more from  the  British.  He  was  a  cap- 
tain in  the  Navy,  as  was  his  son,  John 
A.  Webster,  Jr.,  subsequently. 

Following  his  attendance  at  the  pub- 
lic schools  of  his  birthplace,  and  of  Bal- 
timore, Mr.  Dorsey  entered  Delaware 
College  at  Newark  and  was  graduated 
in  1S75.  The  same  year  lie  came  West  and 
settled  in  Elko,  Nevada,  taking  up  the 


study  of  law  in  the  office  of  Rand  & 
Van  Fleet,  the  latter  now  Federal  Judge 
at  San  Francisco.  He  was  admitted  to 
the  bar  in  1S77  and  practiced  law  in 
Elko  until  1S91,  the  latter  part  of  the 
time  with  George  Baker  and  J.  L.  Wines. 
In  1S91  the  firm  opened  offices  in  San 
Francisco  also  and  Mr. 
Dorsey  came  here,  con- 
tinuing until  1893,  then 
until  1895  was  in  part- 
nership with  George 
Maxwell  and  R.  M.  P. 
Soto.  From  1897  until 
1906  he  was  with  the 
late  R.  R.  Bigelow,  for- 
mer justice  of  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  Neva- 
da, and  since  1911  has 
been  a  member  of  the 
firm  of  Dorsey  and 
Henderson. 

Mr.  Dorsey's  practice 
has  largely  been  in 
mining  and  water  liti- 
gation, with  considera- 
ble corporation  work 
also.  He  has  been  gen- 
eral counsel  for  a  num- 
ber of  concerns,  among 
them  the  Pacific  Hard- 
ware &  Steel  Co.,  John- 
son-Locke Mercantile 
Co.  and  Atlas  Paving 
Brick  Co.  One  of  his 
recent  important  liti- 
gations was  a  suit  he  brought  in  1904 
against  the  Silver  Peak  Mining  Co.  to 
enforce  specific  performance  of  a  con- 
tract for  the  purchase  of  mining  prop- 
erty estimated  to  be  worth  $10,000,000. 
The  case  has  been  appealed  several 
times  and  is  still  pending  in  both  State 
and  Federal  courts.  Perhaps  Mr.  Dor- 
sey's most  notable  work  in  criminal 
law  was  his  long  defense  of  "Diamond 
Field  Jack"  Davis.  Davis  was  convicted 
and  three  times  sentenced  to  liang  for 
the  killing  of  two  sheep  herders  in  Cas- 
sia County,  Idaho,  in  1892.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  though  he  thought  he  might 
have  been  responsible  for  the  herders' 
deaths,  having  had  a  gun-fight  with  un- 
known assailants,  he  was  15  miles  from 
the  real  killing.  Mr.  Dorsey  hinged  his 
case  on  the  fact  that  a  44-caliber  car- 
tridge cannot  be  fired  in  a  45  revolver 
without  it  being  indicated  by  the  swell- 
ing of  the  shell.  After  seven  years  of 
effort  Mr.  Dorsey  got  Davis  free  through 
the  Idaho  State  Board  of  Pardons. 

Although  lie  has  not  been  active  polit- 
ically in  California,  Mr.  Dorsey  was 
prominent  in  Democratic  politics  in  Ne- 
vada. He  served  two  terms  as  district 
attorney  of  Elko  County,  Nevada,  1883- 
5  and  1887-9.  And  he  was  chairman  in 
1888  of  the  Nevada  delegation  to  the 
St.  Louis  convention  which  nominated 
Grover   Cleveland   for  the   presidency. 

Mr.  Dorsey  belongs  to  a  number  of 
social  organizations,  among  them  the 
Family  and  Holluschickie  clubs. 


261 


FREDERICK  EGGERS 


I 


*4T  BELIEVE  that  to  accord  humane 
treatment  to  a  man  who  has  vio- 
lated the  law  and  is  being  pun- 
ished for  it  will  bring  him,  more 
quickly  by  far  than  cruelty,  to  see  his 
mistake  and  seek  to  rectify  it  by  future 
good  conduct.  Prisoners  appreciate 
thoughtfulness 
on  their  b  e  h  a  1  f — it 
eases  their  bitterness 
against  organized  so- 
ciety." 

This,  briefly,  is  the 
creed  of  Frederick 
Eggers,  Sheriff  of  San 
Francisco  County,  by 
which  he  has  accom- 
plished veritable  won- 
ders in  transforming' 
the  County  Jail  into  a 
place  where  offenders 
are  "given  a  chance." 
Frederick  Eggers 
formed  a  set  of  prin- 
ciples, then  put  those 
principles  into  opera- 
tion. He  was  elected 
on  a  platform  in  which 
he  promised  to  give 
the  people  a  business- 
1  i  k  e  administration 
with  e  ffl  c  i  e  n  t  and 
courteous  treatment  of 
those  who  had  deal- 
ings with  his  office,  to 
direct  his  personal  attention  to  the  jail 
at  Ingleside,  to  make  it  sanitary  and 
to  give  its  prisoners  humane  treat- 
ment, all  possible  outdoor  exercise  and 
plenty  of  clean,  wholesome  food. 

This  platform  the  Sheriff  has  carried 
out  to  the  letter,  and  more.  He  has 
gained  the  public's  esteem,  saved  it 
money  while  giving  it  better  service — 
and  many  a  man  has  he  rescued  from 
the   very   brink   of   destruction. 

On  April  10,  1860,  Mr.  Eggers  was 
born  at  Hanover,  Germany.  When  a 
small  boy  he  went  to  New  York  City 
and  from  there,  in  1876,  to  San  Fran- 
cisco. After  three  years  in  the  grocery 
business  he  became  a  salesman  in  the 
wholesale  tea  and  coffee  business,  re- 
maining with  this  until  his  election  as 
Sheriff. 

It  is  a  great  truth  that  those  who 
know  most  of  the  work  of  Sheriff 
Eggers  are  those  who  have  been  most 
affected  by  it — his  prisoners.  Not  long 
after  his  assumption  of  office  the  Sheriff 
discovered  an  old  Dutch  oven  which 
had  been  used  in  the  former  Industrial 
School  a  quarter  of  a  century  before. 
He  put  the  oven  into  shape  and  the 
baking  of  the  jail's  bread  in  it  began. 
Daily  the  oven  turns  out  350  to  400 
three-pound  loaves,  saving  the  tax- 
payers $300  monthly. 

By  the  development  of  the  jail's  truck 
gardens  the  Sheriff  gives  outdoor  em- 
ployment to  thirty  or  forty  men  each 
day.     Its  products  net  the  city  $160  and 


more  a  month;  besides,  vegetables  are 
furnished  free  to  the  Relief  Home,  City 
Prison,  Emergency  and  Tuberculosis 
hospitals  and  other  charitable  institu- 
tions— and  it  gives  the  prisoners  exer- 
cise and  fresh  air,  besides  fresh,  green 
food.  Sheriff  Eggers  also  has  been 
working  about  forty 
men  in  the  improve- 
ment of  unaccepted 
streets  in  the  poorer 
sections  of  the  city. 
This  is  of  direct  and 
lasting   benefit. 

On  a  Sunday  even- 
ing at  the  jail  more 
than  six  hundred  pris- 
oners are  guests  of 
the  Sheriff  at  a  picture 
sliow  and  vaudeville 
entertainment  put  on 
by  other  prisoners  in 
a  chapel  fitted  up  at  a 
cost  of  $3,000,  borne  by 
Sheriff   Eggers. 

"You  will  notice  the 
absence  of  revolvers 
or  rifles  in  the  hands 
of  the  guards,"  says 
the  Sheriff  in  describ- 
ing his  shows.  "There 
is  a  reason — I  want  to 
put  everyone  on  his 
honor.  "They  know 
that  if  there  is  any 
disorder  the  entertainments  will  cease. 
The  result  is  they  respect  me.  Should 
one  become  fractious  I  feel  certain  a 
dozen  others  would  quell  him  immedi- 
ately." 

In  stimulating  the  interest  of  his  pris- 
oners. Sheriff  Eggers  has  not  stopped 
with  the  moving  pictures  and  vaude- 
ville. Realizing  that  those  men  and 
women  held  on  felony  charges — whom 
he  is  not  allowed  by  law  to  give  em- 
ployment outside  the  jail  walls — find 
close  confinement  extremely  irksome, 
he  has  established  a  circulating  library 
for  their  benefit.  It  already  contains 
considerably  more  than  a  thousand 
volumes  of  good,  uplifting  literature 
and  it  is  steadily  growing  by  the  con- 
tributions of  those  of  the  public  who 
believe  in  assisting  the  less  fortunate. 
As  for  the  prisoners  themselves,  they 
are  eager  to  make  use  of  the  library, 
and  it  is  not  difficult  to  discover  that 
their   reading   is   doing   them   good. 

Under  his  system  of  penal  control, 
Sheriff  Eggers  finds  so  few  real  diffi- 
culties in  the  administration  of  the 
jail  that  he  is  able  to  devote  the  more 
time  to  his  office  duties.  He  has  re- 
duced these  to  a  system,  wherein  effi- 
ciency and  courtesy  are  the  watch- 
words. The  Sheriff,  his  deputies  and 
his  bailiffs  in  the  civil  and  criminal 
courts  have  been  praised  repeatedly  by 
jurists,  lawyers  and  the  general  pub- 
lic for  their  attention  to  duty  and  their 
thoroughness. 


1262 


HENRY  EIGKHOFF 


of    enlightened 


IN  watching  tlie  upbuilding  of  a  com- 
munity it  is  easy  for  one  to  pick 
out  from  among  the  men  with 
whom  he  comes  in  contact  the 
workers  for  the  common  good,  and  dis- 
tinguish them  from  those  who  might 
be  classified  as  drones.  The  one  sort  of 
man  is  ever  active, 
willing  at  all  times  to 
do  his  share  and  more, 
and  considering  him- 
self  a  part  of  that 
which  he  is  striving 
to  forward.  The  other 
sort  is  content  to  sit 
back,  as  inactive  as  if 
he  had  no  interest  at 
all  at  stake,  and  leave 
the  solving  of  problems 
to  his  neighbors  and 
associates. 

Looking  over  the 
career  of  Henry  Bick- 
hoff  as  he  has  moulded 
It  since  his  advent  to 
San  Francisco,  one  does 
not  hesitate  in  naming 
him  as  one  of  the 
workers.  For  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a 
century  he  has  taken 
prominent  part  in  the 
affairs  of  his  adopted 
city  and  State,  and 
ever  as  a  champion 
progress. 

Mr.  Eickhoff  is  a  native  of  New  York 
City.  He  was  born  in  the  Eastern 
metropolis  Januar3^  17,  1S56,  the  son  of 
Anthony  Eickhoff  and  Elisa  (Neuen- 
schwander)  Eickhoff.  His  father  was  of 
German  birth  and  a  philologist  and 
journalist  of  note,  writing  five  lan- 
guages. He  came  froin  a  German  uni- 
versity to  New  Orleans  and  in  the  early 
days,  before  1850,  taught  school  in  St. 
Louis.  He  was  sent  to  Congress  and 
during  the  administration  of  President 
Cleveland  was  made  an  auditor  'Of  the 
United  States  Treasury  Department  in 
special  charge  of  the  Consular  service. 
The  present  Mr.  Eickhoff's  mother  was 
born  in  Switzerland. 

Following  his  preliminary  education 
in  the  public  and  private  schools  of 
New  York  City  the  younger  Mr.  Eick- 
hoff took  a  business  and  classical 
course  at  St.  Francis  Xavier  Academy. 
By  this  time  he  had  fully  made  up  his 
mind  to  enter  the  legal  profession  and 
to  prepare  himself  for  it  attended  the 
Columbia  Law  College,  which  graduated 
him  with  the  degree  of  LL.  B.  in  1875. 

In  June  of  the  same  year  Mr.  Eick- 
hoff came  to  San  Francisco  and  entered 
the  law  offices  of  Paul  Neumann  as  a 
clerk.  Two  years  later,  in  1877,  he  was 
admitted  to  the  bar  before  the  Supreme 
Court  of  California  at  Sacramento,  and 
later  was  admitted  to  practice  also  in 
the  United  States  Supreme  Court.  About 
this    time    he    became    Mr.    Neumann's 


law  partner  and  continued  as  such 
until  1883,  when  Mr.  Neumann  was 
appointed  Attorney -General  of  Hawaii. 
For  some  years  after  this  Mr.  Eickhoff 
practiced  alone,  with  consistent  success. 
The  present  firm  of  Lindley  &  Eickhoff 
was  formed  with  Judge  Curtis  H. 
Lindley  in  1886. 

Through  all  these 
years  since  he  first 
became  an  exponent  of 
Blackstone,  Mr.  Eick- 
hoff has  aligned  him- 
self with  those  who 
desire  to  see  the  city, 
the  State  and  the 
nation  forge  ahead.  He 
took  part  in  a  reform 
movement  of  histori- 
cal significance  when, 
with  J.  J.  Dwyer,  Judge 
Jeremiah  F.  Sullivan, 
Samuel  H.  Daniels  and 
A.  A.  Watkins,  he  was 
a  member  of  the  re- 
organization commit- 
tee that  ended  the 
political  rule  of  Boss 
Chris  Buckley  in  San 
Francisco  in  1890.  He 
was  associated  with 
Matt  L  Sullivan  in  the 
Heney-Fickert  recount 
and  was  one  of  the 
committee  that  conducted  the  campaign 
of  Heney  for  District  Attorney.  He 
has  also  been  a  trustee  of  San  Rafael, 
where  he  made  his  home  for  some 
years. 

When,  in  February  of  1915,  Dennis 
M.  Duffy  resigned  from  the  State  Board 
of  Prison  Directors,  Governor  Hiram 
Johnson  immediately  nained  Mr.  Eick- 
hoff to  fill  the  vacancy,  recognizing  in 
him  a  man  who  would  do  his  duty  with 
a  clear  conscience  and  without  truck- 
ling to  any  other  controlling  factor 
than  right  and  justice.  Politically  Mr. 
Eickhoff  is  a  Democrat,  but  he  has  al- 
ways been  a  standi  supporter  of  Gover- 
nor Johnson  and  during  the  last  cam- 
paign took  an  active  interest  in  John- 
son's political  fortunes. 

Mr.  Eickhoff  has  taken  a  keen  interest 
in  club,  activities.  He  was  formerly 
president  of  the  Columbia  College 
Alumni  Association  of  California  and  of 
the  Cosmos  Club,  is  a  member  of  "The 
Family,"  the  San  Francisco  Commercial 
Club,  Merchants'  Exchange,  Common- 
wealth Club,  Union  League  Club,  the 
German  Benevolent  Association,  Ameri- 
can Bar  Association,  California  Bar 
Association,  San  Francisco  Bar  Asso- 
ciation and  a  number  of  other  organ- 
izations. He  is  also  prominent  in  the 
Masonic  order. 

Mr.  Eickhoff  was  married  September 
13,  1882,  in  San  Francisco  to  Jessie  M. 
Lowe  and  is  the  father  of  four  children, 
Gregory  H.,  Victor,  Tekla  and  Henry 
Eickhoff,  Jr. 


24 


263 


HENRY  ENGELS 


SOME  four  decades  ago  Henry  En- 
gels,  then  a  young  man,  was  asso- 
ciated with  his  father  and  brothers, 
the  former  the  late  Henry  Engels, 
in  the  foundry  and  metal  business  in 
San  Francisco.  In  those  days  the  firm 
paid  from  35  to  40  cents  a  pound  for 
pig  copper  and  the 
cliief  source  of  supply 
was  the  Lake  Superior 
copper  region.  Tlie  de- 
mand for  copper  was 
increasing,  thanks  to 
the  great  improve- 
ments tlien  being  made 
in  electrical  a  p  p  1  i- 
ances  and  machinery, 
and  attention  began  to 
be  directed  more  and 
more  to  the  value  of 
the  red  metal. 

These  conditions 
form  the  impetus  for 
the  years  of  effort  tliat 
followed  on  the  part  of 
the  Engels  family — 
years  that  have  re- 
sulted in  the  organi- 
zation of  the  Engels 
Copper  Mining  Com- 
pany and  the  operation 
by  it  of  one  of  the  most 
valuable  holdings  of 
its  kind  on  the  Pacific 
Coast.  Thus  does  sup- 
ply follow  demand  and 
development  projects  materialize  when 
once  a  field  has  been  opened  for 
them. 

To  go  back  a  bit,  the  younger  Henry 
Engels,  now  president  of  the  Engels 
Copper  Mining  Company,  is  a  native  of 
San  Francisco,  born  February  1,  1854. 
He  attended  the  private  and  public 
schools  of  this  city,  and  to  round  out 
his  education  attended  and  was  grad- 
uated from  Heald's  Business  College, 
wJiich  at  that  time  w^as  in  the  old  Piatt's 
Hall  where  the  Mills  building  now 
stands  and  where  the  mining  company's 
offices  are  located.  From  business  col- 
lege Mr.  Engels  went  into  his  father's 
foundry. 

The  rapid  approach  of  a  crisis  in  the 
copper  situation,  studied  long  and  ear- 
nestly by  the  elder  Engels  and  his 
sons,  finally  determined  them  to  pros- 
pect and,  if  possible,  to  develop  a  cop- 
per mine.  They  had  had  valuable  ex- 
periences in  mining  and  metallurgy, 
and  were  well  equipped  for  that  which 
they  set  out  to  do. 

After  several  years  of  prospecting 
the  Engels  located,  in  the  late  '70s,  in 
Lights  Canyon,  Plumas  County,  where 
the  present  mines  are  situated.  Realiz- 
ing that  to  develop  a  district  they  must 
live  in  it  and  give  their  entire  time  to 
it,  and  that  if  there  is  to  be  any  prog- 
ress it  must  follow  as  the  result  of 
hard  work,  they  proceeded  to  do  both. 
This  hard  work  and  close  study  of  geo- 
logic conditions   later   made    it  possible 


for    them    to    promote    their    enterprise 
witli    success. 

Before  this  time,  in  the  sixties  in  fact 
and  even  as  early  as  the  fifties,  prospec- 
tors had  made  their  way  into  the  Plu- 
mas County  district.  Both  alluvial  and 
lode  mining  for  gold  was  done  and 
in  1865  rich  copper 
ore  being  discovered, 
a  small  smelter  was 
built  and  run  intermit- 
tently for  four  years. 
The  amount  of  copper 
that  alloyed  the  gold 
was  not  attractive  to 
the  pioneer  prospec- 
tors, however,  and  they 
soon  joined  the  rush  to 
Virginia  City,  where 
the  gold  and  silver  ex- 
citement was  intense. 
For  years  hardly  any 
further  attention  was 
given  to  the  Lights 
Canyon  district  until 
the  Engels  family  lo- 
cated there. 

To  quote  from  the 
Mining  and  Scientific 
Press,  of  a  recent  is- 
sue: 

"At  that  time  there 
was  no  railroad  nearer 
than  Reno,  150  miles 
away,  and  mining  in 
sucli  a  remote  locality 
was  difficult,  though  a  fair  tonnage  of 
rich  ore  was  mined  and  shipped  to  Swan- 
sea. The  discoverer  and  his  sons,  Henry 
and  William  Engels,  who  have  been 
largely  responsible  for  the  later  devel- 
opment of  the  mine,  were  courageous 
and  persistent,  however,  and  the  assess- 
ment work  necessary  to  hold  the  prop- 
erty was  so  directed  as  to  block  out 
constantly  increasing  amounts  of  ore." 
The  Engels  were  determined  to  prove 
a  good  mine  before  seeking  outside  cap- 
ital. At  first  there  was  no  boom  in  cop- 
per, and  few  seemed  to  realize  the  great 
future  for  the  metal,  so  it  was  difficult 
to  interest  investors.  The  railroad  that 
Kennedy  surveyed  and  planned  to  build 
through  Plumas  County  failed,  and  it 
was  only  after  twenty  years  that  the 
Western  Pacific  began  to  build  the  line. 
But  during  this  time  actual  work  by 
the  Engels  proved  the  existence  of  rich 
ore  in  great  quantities,  and  in  1906 
their  company  was  organized.  Then 
followed  more  persistence  in  opening 
up  the  mine  witli  small  capital;  but  tlie 
stockliolders  wore  kept  together  by 
tlieir  faith  in  the  promoters,  and  in  the 
manager,  Mr.  E.  E.  Paxton,  and  by  pro- 
viding more  funds  placed  the  property 
on  a  profital)le  basis.  Today  the  mine 
is  paying  well  and  is  being  enlarged  so 
as  to  double  the  present  capacity. 

The  mill  of  the  Engels  mine  is  unique 
in  that  it  is  the  only  one  yet  built 
in  which  no  other  process  than  flotation 
is  used  for  the  recovery  of  copper. 


'264 


J 


JAMES  EDWARD  FENTON 


THE  length  and  breadth  of  the 
Pacific  Coast  have  made  up  the 
field  of  James  Edward  Fenton 
in  the  practice  of  his  profession 
— the  law.  He  has  appeared  before  the 
bar  in  Alaska,  Oregon,  Washington  and 
California,  and  finally  has  chosen  San 
Francisco  as  the  scene 
of  his  further  endeav- 
ors. 

James  Edward  Fen- 
ton was  born  in  Clark 
County,  Missouri,  on 
the  farm  of  his  father, 
James  Davis  Fenton. 
His  mother  was  Mar- 
s'a  r  e  t  (Pinkerton) 
Fenton.  In  1865,  when 
he  was  but  an  eight- 
year-old  boy,  he  ac- 
companied his  parents 
on  a  grilling  trip 
across  the  plains  be- 
hind a  plodding  team 
of  oxen.  Six  months 
after  the  family  left 
Missouri  they  reached 
Oregon,  where  they 
settled. 

Following  his  early 
education  in  the  com- 
mon schools  of  Ore- 
gon, Mr.  Fenton  en- 
tered Christian  Col- 
lege of  Monmouth, 
from  which  he  was  graduated  in  1877 
with  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts.  The 
following  year  he  entered  the  educa- 
tional field  himself  when  he  was  elected 
professor  of  mathematics  at  Christian 
College.  He  was  for  two  years  in  this 
position,  and  then  for  two  years  more 
taught  in  various  academies  in  Oregon, 
being  principal  of  those  at  Bethel  and 
Eugene. 

Under  the  tutorship  of  William  M. 
Ramsey,  now  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Oregon,  Mr.  Fenton  entered 
upon  the  study  of  law  in  Ramsey's  of- 
fices at  Salem.  In  1SS2  he  was  ad- 
mitted to  practice  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  State,  and  in  1884  began 
the  active  pursuit  of  his  profession  at 
Eugene. 

Six  years  later,  in  1890,  Mr.  Fenton 
gave  up  his  practice  at  Eugene  and  re- 
moved to  Spokane,  "Wasliington,  where 
he  formed  a  law  partnersliip  witli  his 
brother,  Charles  R.  Fenton,  under  the 
firm  style  of  Fenton  &  Fenton.  Pos- 
sessed of  a  strong  taste  for  politics,  Mr. 
Fenton  was  early  led  to  take  an  active 
part  in  public  affairs,  aligning  himself 
with  the  Democratic  party.  He  was  a 
candidate  in  1880  on  the  Democratic 
ticket  of  Polk  County,  Oregon,  for  the 
State  Legislature,  but  his  party  being  in 
the  minority  he  failed  of  election.  In 
1888  he  announced  his  candidacy  for 
county  judge  of  Lane  County,  Oregon, 
and  was  defeated  by  only  two  votes. 
At  the  fall  election  of  1892,  however,  he 


was  nominated  and  elected  prosecuting 
attorney  of  Spokane  County,  Washing- 
ton, and  held  that  office  for  two  years. 
He  was  a  delegate  in  1896  from  the 
State  of  Washington  to  the  National 
Democratic  convention  at  Chicago 
which  nominated  William  Jennings 
Bryan  for  the  presi- 
dency. In  1898  he  was 
tendered  the  nomina- 
tion for  Congress  in 
the  State  of  Washing- 
ton but  declined  to  ac- 
cept the  honor. 

Mr.  Fenton  continued 
the  practice  of  his  pro- 
fession in  the  State  of 
Washington  until  the 
fall  of  1898,  when  he 
removed  to  Nome, 
Alaska.  This  was  the 
year  of  the  world-wide 
rush  to  the  Alaskan 
gold  fields,  v.'hen  hun- 
dreds and  thousands  of 
fortune-seekers  from 
all  quarters  of  the 
globe  penetrated  into 
the  North.  In  Alaska 
Mr.  Fenton  divided  his 
time  for  the  ensuing 
six  years  between  min- 
ing and  the  practice  of 
law.  His  legal  work 
was  largely  in  mining 
and  criminal  law  and  while  he  was  in 
the  northern  territory  he  took  an  ac- 
tive part  in  the  most  important  min- 
ing litigation  before  the  courts.  One 
of  the  suits  was  to  establish  title  to 
the  placer  property  known  as  No.  1 
on  Daniels  Creek  in  the  Topkok  mining 
district,  in  wliich  was  involved  some 
$1,000,000.  In  another,  the  Glacier  Bench 
mining  litigation,  was  involved  |500,- 
000. 

In  1903,  leaving  Alaska  behind  him, 
Mr.  Fenton  came  southward  as  far  as 
California  and  gained  admittance  to 
the  bar  in  this  State.  In  1904  he  lo- 
cated in  San  Francisco,  practicing  here 
until  June,  1906,  just  after  the  big  fire, 
Avhen  he  returned  to  Seattle.  In  1908 
he  went  to  Portland  and  became  assist- 
ant counsel  for  the  Southern  Pacific 
Company  in  association  with  his  broth- 
er, W.  D.  Fenton,  chief  counsel  for 
the  corporation.  In  this  capacity  Mr. 
Fenton  took  an  active  part  in  the  liti- 
gation between  the  United  States  and 
the  Oregon  &  California  Railroad  Com- 
pany, wherein  the  Government  sought 
to  forfeit  the  Oregon  Land  Grant.  In 
1911  he  resigned  from  this  position  and 
returned  to  San  Francisco,  where  he 
continues  alone  in  the  practice  of  his 
profession. 

Fraternally,  Mr.  Fenton' is  a  member 
of  the  Spokane  lodge  of  the  Scottish 
Rite  and  of  El  Katif  Temple  of  the 
Mystic  Shrine,  of  Spokane.  He  also 
belongs  to  the  B.  P.  O.  Elks. 


265 


HERBERT  FLEISHHACKER 


MANY  things  make  up  those  attri- 
butes that  aid  a  man  toward  suc- 
cess. Not  the  least  of  these  is 
inherent  ambition,  coupled  with 
strict  honesty  of  purpose  and  perform- 
ance. All  these  are  recognized  char- 
acteristics of  Herbert  Fleishhacker, 
president  of  the  Anglo 
&  London  Paris  Na- 
tional Bank,  financier, 
capitalist  and  officer 
or  director  of  a  num- 
ber of  sound  corpora- 
tions. 

The  career  of  Her- 
bert Fleishhacker  has 
been  a  succession  of 
hard-won  achieve- 
ments.  He  did  not  ac- 
quire, at  the  outset, 
the  "higher  education." 
But  the  lack  of  it  at 
no  time  seemed  a 
handicap;  he  did  things 
just  the  same. 

A  native  of  San 
Francisco,  born  here 
November  2,  1S72,  Mr. 
Fleishhacker  was  sent 
to  school  for  eight 
years  by  his  parents, 
Aaron  and  Delia 
(Stern)  Fleishhacker, 
and  attended  Heald's 
Business  College  one 
year  more.  When  fif- 
teen years  old  he  became  a  bookkeeper 
in  his  father's  paper  business,  but  after 
about  a  year  and  a  half  entered  the 
manufacturing  end.  Here  was  his  start 
and  he  made  the  most  of  it. 

After  four  years  as  a  paper  manu- 
facturer he  went  into  the  sales  depart- 
ment and  became  a  traveling  salesman 
for  the  concern.  As  he  traveled  he 
kept  his  eyes  open  for  opportunities. 
In  Oregon  he  saw  the  need  of  paper 
mills.  This  led  to  his  establishment  of 
the  first  mills  of  the  kind  in  the  State, 
at  Oregon  City.  The  project  was  a 
success  and  later  he  organized  a  large 
lumber  company  near  Eugene,  Oregon. 
Again  success  attended  him. 

Returning  to  California,  Mr.  Fleish- 
hacker organized  and  promoted  the 
Electric  Power  Company  at  Floriston. 
Gradually  he  acquired  or  built  other 
properties  in  various  parts  of  the  State, 
among  them  the  Truckee  River  Elec- 
tric Company,  which  was  sold  in  1909 
for  nearly  $2,000,000,  and  the  Sacra- 
mento Valley  Power  Company,  which 
brought  something  like  $1,000,000  in 
1912.  At  one  time  he  had  more  than  a 
dozen  power  plants  and  factories  in 
operation  and  still  retains  his  interest 
in   a  number  of  them. 

From  a  promoter  Mr.  Fleishhacker 
easily  became  a  banker.  In  1907  he 
accepted  the  managership  of  the  Lon- 
don, Paris  &  American  Bank  of  San 
Francisco.  When,  on  March  1,  1909, 
this  institution  absorbed  the  Anglo- 
California  Bank,  Ltd.,  and  became  the 


Anglo  &  London  Paris  National  Bank 
of  today,  he  went  up  a  step  higher 
and  became  vice-president  and  man- 
ager. He  was  chosen  president  of  the 
bank  in  March,  1911,  upon  the  resigna- 
tion from  that  position  of  S.  Green- 
baum.  When  Mr.  Fleishhacker  became 
a  part  of  the  London, 
Paris  &  American 
Bank  in  1907  the  de- 
posits were  $4,500,000; 
today  the  bank  that  he 
heads  has  deposits  in 
excess  of  $30,000,000 
and  is  the  largest  in- 
.stitution  of  its  kind 
west  of  the  Rocky 
IMountains.  It  is  pro- 
gressive, conservative, 
and  makes  a  specialty 
of  exchange  business. 
In  addition  to  his 
presidency  of  the 
Anglo  &  London  Paris 
Bank,  Mr.  Fleish- 
hacker is  president 
of  the  Northwestern 
Electric  Company,  the 
Floriston  Land  & 
Power  Company  and 
the  Reno  (Nevada) 
Traction  Company;  is 
vice-president  of  the 
Anglo-California  Trust 
Company,  the  Central 
California  T  r  a  c  ti  o  n 
Company,  the  City  Electric  Company 
and  the  Great  Western  Power  Com- 
pany, and  a  director  of  the  Crown- 
Columbia  Paper  Pulp  Company,  the 
Swiss-American  Bank,  the  Floriston 
Pulp  &  Paper  Company  and  a  number 
of    others. 

Not  the  least  interesting  of  Mr. 
Fleishhacker's  characteristics  is  hia 
love  of  home,  and  within  the  family 
circle  he  is  usually  to  be  found  in  his 
leisure  moments.  He  was  married 
August  9,  1905,  to  Miss  May  Belle 
Greenbaum  and  the  couple  have  three 
children,  Marjorie,  Herbert  Jr.  and  Alan 
Howard. 

Not  to  mention  Mr.  Fleishhacker's 
connection  with  the  Panama-Pacific 
International  Exposition  would  be  to 
omit  an  important  work  he  has  done 
on  behalf  of  San  Francisco  and  Cali- 
fornia. He  has  given  of  his  co-opera- 
tion to  the  great  world  show  from  its 
very  start;  he  has  backed  it  with  money 
and  with  lirains.  It  is  significant  that 
the  financial  side  of  the  Exposition  is 
handled  through  the  Anglo  &  London 
Paris  National  Bank,  that  the  vast  daily 
receipts  are  hauled  to  the  bank's  doors 
in  a  steel  vault  on  wheels  every  even- 
ing. 

Herbert  Fleishhacker  is  a  type  of 
man  whom  it  would  be  well  to  pattern 
after.  To  men  such  as  he  San  Fran- 
cisco owes  much — how  much  one  can 
readily  conceive  in  a  comparison  of  the 
city  as  it  exists  today,  with  its  sky- 
scrapers and  modern  business  concerns, 
and  as  it  existed  nine  years  ago  in  its 
ashes,  with  business  almost  annihilated 
by  the  great  conflagration. 


266 


DR.  ANTONIO  A.  R.  F.  FONTECHA 


WHEN  the  Republic  of  Honduras 
accepted  the  formal  invitation 
from  the  President  of  the 
United  States  to  participate  of- 
ficially in  the  Panama-Pacific  Exposi- 
tion— it  was  one  of  the  first  nations,  by 
the  way,  to  announce  its  acceptance — 
it  placed  in  charge  of 
its  exhibit  a  man 
whose  wide  experience 
and  ability  in  such 
matters  had  long  been 
recognized. 

This  man  is  Dr. 
Antonio  A.  Ramirez  F. 
Pontecha,  who,  as 
Commissioner -General 
for  Honduras  to  the 
Exposition,  has  adver- 
tised his  country  in 
more  favorable  a  light 
than,  perhaps,  it  has 
ever  been  exploited  in 
the  United  States.  In 
a  magnificent  building, 
tastefully  fitted  up,  he 
arranged  a  series  of 
exhibits  that  were 
doubtless  as  surprising 
to  the  thousands  of 
visitors  w  h  o  viewed 
them  as  they  were 
comprehensive. 

Dr.  Fontecha  has 
been  given  many 
honors  by  the  govern- 
m  e  n  t  he  represents. 
Pour  times  has  he 
been  commissioner-general  for  Hon- 
duras to  expositions,  two  of  them  at 
Paris  and  one  at  Madrid,  as  well  as 
that  at  San  Francisco.  He  also  has  been 
Minister  for  Honduras  at  Paris  and 
Madrid,  and  represented  his  country  in 
the  conference  at  Madrid  in  1905-7  re- 
garding the  controversy  over  the 
boundary  between  Honduras  and  Nic- 
aragua. He  is  a  physician  and  surgeon, 
has  been  rector  of  the  Central  Uni- 
versity of  Honduras  at  Tegucigalpa, 
and  at  present  is  president  of  the  Hon- 
duras Academy.  He  holds  membership, 
besides,  in  the  Royal  Academy  of  the 
Spanish  Language,  the  Royal  Academy 
of  History  and  the  Royal  Society  of 
Geography,  all  of  Spain. 

In  order  to  "diffuse  and  popularize 
knowledge  of  Honduras,  and  to  dissi- 
pate the  legends  that  ignorance  and 
passion  have  spread  of  the  nation 
abroad,"  Dr.  Fontecha  has  written  an 
interesting  volume  commemorative  of 
the  Panama-Pacific  Exposition.  It  is 
probably  the  most  accurate  and  com- 
plete work  ever  written  on  Honduras 
and  is  of  unusual  interest. 

Honduras  was  discovered  by  Chris- 
topher Columbus  in  1502,  during  the 
fourth  voyage  of  that  famous  naviga- 
tor. It  is  in  the  exact  center  of  Central 
America,  with  Guatemala,  Salvador  and 
Nicaragua  for  neighbors;  and,  in  the 
words  of  Dr.  Fontecha,  offers  "for  any 
enterprising  man,  as  well  as  for  the 
assiduous  workman  and  laborer,  the 
most  favorable  opportunities  and  con- 
ditions for  the  development  of  his 
activities." 

Its   topography   is   made    up   of   high 


mountains,  elevated  plateaus  and  deep 
valleys  of  wondrous  fertility  and  there 
is  found  within  its  borders  practically 
all  the  animal  and  vegetable  life  com- 
mon to  either  the  torrid  or  temperate 
zones.  In  many  places  it  is  covered 
with  heavy  forest  growths  of  rich  and 
valuable  timber,  i  n  - 
eluding  mahogany, 
rosewood,  logwood, 
brazilwood  and  others, 
with  pine  at  the  higher 
elevations. 

Agriculturally,  Hon- 
duras, with  the  proper 
development,  will  one 
day  yield  enormously. 
The  culture  of  bananas 
leads  in  importance, 
but  there  is  also  grown 
Indian  corn,  French 
beans,  rice,  wheat, 
coffee,  cocoa,  tobacco, 
potatoes,  cocoanuts, 
sugar,  rubber,  indigo 
and  sarsaparilla.  As 
for  the  manner  in 
which  cereals  thrive, 
Honduras  could  easily 
be  made  the  granary 
for  all  Central  Amer- 
ica. 

The  raising  of  cattle 
is  one  of  Honduras' 
principal  industries, 
made  possible  by  the 
great  extent  of  natural 
pasturage.  Much  stock 
is  exported,  along  with  bananas  and 
other  commodities,  not  only  to  the 
United  States  and  other  countries  on 
this  side  of  the  Atlantic  but  also  to 
Europe. 

One  of  the  things  that  most  distin- 
guishes this  really  wonderful  country 
is  its  vast  mineral  wealth.  Treasure 
hunters  were  attracted  to  it  by  the 
thousands  during  the  time  of  the 
Spanish  domination;  then  for  a  long 
time  the  mining  development  was  neg- 
lected, and  it  is  only  since  about  1881 
that  the  exploitation  of  mines  has  been 
on  the  ascendancy.  Gold,  silver,  plati- 
num, copper,  nickel,  lead,  zinc,  iron, 
quicksilver  and  antimony  occur,  as  do 
sulphur,  tin,  alum,  saltpetre,  mica  and 
others.  Precious  gems  also  are  to  be 
found,  as  well  as  coal,  and  oil  is 
believed  to  exist  in  quantities.  Rich 
mineral  vv^aters  await  only  exploitation 
to  become  profitable. 

Honduras,  the  third  in  size  of  the 
Central  American  states,  has  an  area 
of  about  45,000  square  miles,  and  a 
population,  in  1912,  of  578,482.  The 
.birth  rate  is  high  and  the  death  rate 
surprisingly  low^.  It  can  boast  of  a 
well-organized  judiciary;  railways, 
telegraph  and  telephones;  a  system  of 
good  roads  built  on  the  tracks  made  by 
the  Spanish  conquerors,  and  an  up-to- 
date  postoffice  system.  Primary  public 
instruction  is  free  and  compulsory;  in 
1913  there  were  37,897  children  being 
educated  in  916  schools. 

These  schools,  with  several  modern 
colleges  and  universities,  are  bringing 
about  an  enlightenment  that  makes  the 
future  of  Honduras  assured. 


267 


G.  S.  S.  FORNEY 

President  Central  California  Gas  Company. 


f 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  FRICK 


IN  the  past  two  decades  few  names 
have  been  connected  with  noted 
court  cases  in  Alameda  County  so 
often  as  the  name  of  Abraliam  Lin- 
coln Frick,  whether  as  prosecutor, 
judg-e  or  defender.  Big  cases  mean 
prominence  in  the  legal  profession. 
Judge  Frick  is  prom- 
inent. 

Seme  of  his  cases 
have  been  of  nation- 
wide interest  and  in 
their  handling  he  has 
gained  wide  repute  as 
an  interpreter  of  civil 
and  criminal  law.  This 
has  been  especially 
true  of  his  criminal 
work,  although  he  has 
handled  many  civil 
cases  of  broad  tcope 
and    general    interest. 

One  at  least  of  his 
cases  has  had  a  pro- 
found influence  on  the 
legal  profession  of  Cal- 
ifornia, and  perhaps  of 
the  whole  country. 
Tliis  was  his  recent 
representation  of  At- 
torney George  J.  Mc- 
Donough. 

McDonough,  repre- 
senting a  client  ac- 
cused of  participation 
in  election  frauds,  was 
asked  by  the  Alameda 
County  Grand  Jury  tO' 
tell  who  retained  him  and  furnished 
bail  for  sucli  client.  On  advice  of  Judge 
Frick,  he  declined  to  tell.  He  was  or- 
dered to  do  so  by  Superior  Judge  Ogden 
and  refused,  whereupon  he  was  ad- 
judged guilty  of  contempt  and  sen- 
tenced to  the   county  jail. 

Judge  Frick  took  out  a  writ  of  habeas 
corpus,  returnable  before  the  District 
Court  of  Appeals,  •  which  sustained 
Judge  Ogden.  He  then  brought  the 
habeas  corpus  action  before  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  California  ■which,  sitting 
en  banc,  rendered  an  almost  unanimous 
decision  reversing  Judge  Ogden  and 
forming  an  epochal  precedent  govern- 
ing confidential  relations  between  at- 
torney and  client.  From  a  profes- 
sional standpoint,  Judge  Frick  con- 
siders this  one  of  his  most  gratifying 
cuses. 

Judge  Frick  comes  of  American  pre- 
Revolutionary  stock.  He  is  the  son  of 
George  Washington  Frick,  a  native  of 
Westmoreland  County,  Pennsylvania, 
who  wedded  Miss  Mary  Elizabetli  Bry- 
ant in  Illinois  in  1852  and  came  to  Cal- 
ifornia w^itli  his  bride  in  that  year.  He 
taught  in  the  first  public  school  in  San- 
ta Cruz,  then  moved  to  Centerville  and, 
in  1S57,  to  Sonoma  County.  During  the 
Civil  War  he  w^as  president  of  the 
Sonoma    County    Bethel    Union    League. 

Abraham  Lincoln  Frick  was  born 
near  Petaluma  February  21,  1866,  and 
is  a  brother  to  George  William  Frick, 
now  Alameda  County  Superintendent  of 
Schools.  But  Abraham  Lincoln  Frick 
chose  the  law.    He  was  educated  in  the 


public  schools  and  then  went  to  the 
Hastings  Law  College,  being  graduated 
in  1SS8.  He  was  admitted  to  practice 
by  the  Supreme  Court  on  June  28,  1888. 
Despite  the  usual  early  struggles, 
Judge  Frick  was  soon  successful  in  his 
chosen  work.  He  served  as  deputy  dis- 
trict attorney  in  Ala- 
meda County  under 
George  W.  Reed  and 
later  as  chief  deputy 
under  Charles  E. 
Snook. 

On  December  10, 
1894,  he  was  appointed 
a  superior  judge  to  fill 
the  unexpired  term  of 
Judge  F.  W.  Henshaw, 
who  became  a  Su- 
preme Court  justice. 

On  May  21,  1896,  the 
young  jurist  took  a 
wife,  Miss  Matilda  M. 
Bader   of  Oakland. 

His  real  career  as  an 
eloquent  pleader  at  the 
bar  began  after  leav- 
ing the  superior  bench. 
The  first  important 
case  was  the  defense 
of  Clara  Falmer,  a  sev- 
enteen-year-old girl 
charged  with  muruer. 
Tills  case  helped  vastly 
to  build  Judge  Frick's 
reputation.  The  trial 
consumed  several 
weeks.  Finally  the 
jury  went  out  for  twenty  minutes  and 
acquitted  the  defendant,  who  since 
has  justified  all  the  work  in  her  be- 
half. 

This  case  also  established  the  repu- 
tation of  Dr.  O.  D.  Hamlin  as  an  alien- 
ist, thus  bringing  a  young  lawyer  and 
a  young  doctor  into  the  prominence 
they  have  held  ever  since  in  Alameda 
County. 

Since  that  case,  Judge  Frick  has 
fought  many  big  court  battles  with  less 
than  the  usual  percentage  of  defeats. 
One  of  his  most  important  struggles 
was  the  successful  defense  of  Mrs. 
Brown  for  the  killing  of  her  husband, 
a  case  of  nation-wide  prominence, 
whose  details  were  flashed  broadcast 
over  the  telegraph  wires.  Another  val- 
iant defense  was  that  of  Tom  Power, 
accused  of  murder.  In  twenty-two  mur- 
der cases  wliich  Judge  Frick  has  de- 
fended, none  of  his  clients  has  paid  the 
e.xtreme  penalty. 

In  civil  cases  success  has  likewise  at- 
tended him.  An  important  recent  one 
was  the  defense  of  Dr.  Jolin  Robertson 
of  the  Livermore  Sanitarium,  sued  for 
$80,000  damages  by  a  patient.  This 
physician,  by  the  way,  had  been  an  op- 
ponent of  Dr.  Hamlin  as  alienist  in  the 
Falmer   case. 

Judge  Frick  is  medium  tall,  and  slim, 
of  the  incisive  type  of  attorney,  with  a 
vibrant,  resonant  voice.  Whether  pros- 
ecutor or  defender,  lie  lias  lield  tlie  re- 
spect of  his  opponents  and  has  chal- 
lenged the  best  of  their  talents  to  com- 
bat  his  marshaling  of  the  law. 


269 


CHARLES  H.  GAUNT 


THE  broad  and  vigorous  adminis- 
tration of  a  public  utility,  so 
closely  identified  with  our  every- 
day affairs  as  the  telegraph, 
creates  a  business  and  social  asset  of 
high  value;  and  the  exceptional  organ- 
ization and  operation  of  the  forces  of 
the  Western  Union 
Telegraph  Company 
on  the  I'aciflc  Coast 
indicate  the  skill  and 
capacity  of  Charles  H. 
Gaunt,  the  General 
Manager,  to  meet  every 
condition  that  arises 
in  the  conduct  of  that 
company's  relations 
with  the  public. 

Mr.  Gaunt,  pursuing 
a  course  similar  to 
most  executives  o  f 
public  service  corpo- 
rations, has  spent  all 
of  his  active  business 
life  in  the  study  and 
handling  of  tele- 
graphic problems  o  n 
their  technical  side, 
and  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  forces 
dealing  with  the  users 
of  the  telegraph  on  the 
popular  side.  He  has 
reached  out  and 
drawn  to  his  service  men  of  both  dom- 
inant personality  and  unusual  ability  to 
carry  out  his  ideas  of  corporate  man- 
agement in  its  relation  to  the  compli- 
cated demands  of  the  public;  and  there 
has  been  no  department  of  the  work  in 
which  he  has  not  succeeded,  nor  any 
portion  of  the  duties  imposed  upon  him 
that  have  not  received  progressive  and 
up-to-date  performance. 

Mr.  Gaunt  is  a  native  of  New  York, 
born  in  Steuben  County,  August  29, 
1869.  With  the  prevailing  enthusiasm 
of  the  young  men  of  that  period  he 
directed  his  attention  to  the  electrical 
field,  and  entered  the  fascinating  occu- 
pation of  telegrapher,  first  at  the  small 
office  in  his  home  town  in  New  Jersey, 
to  which  he  moved  while  young,  then 
in  New  York  City,  where  he  developed 
his  skill  and  formed  impressions  of  the 
possibilities  of  telegraphic  expansion 
and  operation  that  have  been  of  great 
value  to  him  in  applying  his  expertness 
to  the  wider  fields  of  the  West. 

In  1889  Mr.  Gaunt  went  to  Helena, 
Montana,  then  a  thriving  mining  city, 
and  as  manager  of  the  Northern  Pacific 
Railway's  telegraph  department  passed 
that  period  of  development  and  hard 
work  through  which  all  forceful  men 
go  in  preparation  for  a  successful  career 
in  the  Western  territory,  where  fresh 
expansion  and  breadth  of  operation  call 
for  the  best  type  of  mental  capacity 
and  physical  endurance. 


accepted,  the  position  of  Superintendent 
of  Telegraph  of  the  Santa  Fe  Railway 
System,  and  with  this  opportunity  he 
applied  the  principles  of  telegraphic 
development  and  control  which  he  had 
long  studied  and  prepared  for,  with  the 
result  that  the  telegraph  organization 
and  efliciency  brought 
o  u  t  o  n  that  railroad 
system  exceeded  in 
economic  value  and 
substantial  usefulness 
any  that  had  been  built 
up  upon  large  railroad 
properties.  His  admin- 
istrative success  was 
so  marked  that  an  ad- 
vancement in  1905  to 
the  position  of  Assist- 
ant General  Manager 
of  the  parent  lines  of 
the  Santa  Fe  Railway, 
in  addition  to  his 
duties  as  head  of  the 
telegraph  department 
of  the  entire  system, 
carried  him  into  the 
direct  management  of 
the  railroad  property 
with  consequent  en- 
largement of  experi- 
ence and  capacity  for 
responsibility. 

Mr.  Gaunt  was  ap- 
pointed General  Superintendent  of  the 
Western  Union  Telegraph  Company  at 
San  Francisco  in  July,  1910,  and  his  title 
was  changed  to  that  of  General  Man- 
ager in  December,  1912;  his  jurisdic- 
tional territory  being  composed  of  the 
States  of  California,  Oregon,  Washing- 
ton, Arizona  and  Nevada,  together  with 
British  Columbia  in  Canada.  With  the 
same  energy  and  resourcefulness  exer- 
cised in  his  railroad  work  he  has  built 
up  the  Western  Union  service  on  the 
Pacific  Coast  so  that  it  is  an  organized 
telegraphic  facility  which  embraces  in 
commercial  usefulness  and  adequate 
equipment  every  modern  and  progress- 
ive, idea  that  highly  trained  men  can 
apply  to  the  needs  of  business  develop- 
ment and  the  daily  activities  of  the 
people.  As  the  scope  of  the  Western 
Union's  operations  brings  the  company 
in  close  touch  w^ith  every  community, 
the  vigorous  and  thorough  policy  insti- 
tuted and  maintained  by  Mr.  Gaunt  is 
felt  in  all  parts  of  the  territory  as- 
signed to  his  management. 

Mr.  Gaunt  married  Miss  Mary  Flesher 
of  Helena,  Montana,  in  1890,  and  their 
family  consists  of  one  son,  now  grown. 
Throughout  his  business  career  Mr. 
Gaunt  has  been  keenly  active  in 
securing  a  wide  commercial  acquaint- 
ance, both  in  the  territory  administered 
by  him  and  throughout  the  United 
States.  He  is  a  member  of  the  Bohemian, 
Press  and  Country  Clubs  of  San  Fran- 


In  1902  Mr.  Gaunt  was  tendered,  and        cisco,  and  a  lover  of  automobile  touring. 

270 


JOHN   GINTY 


CONFIDENCE  in  a  public  official  fol- 
lows only  after  it  is  proved  tliat 
the  office  is  efficiently  and  hon- 
estly conducted.  This  is  particu- 
larly true  of  tlie  Assessor's  office,  which 
is  the  real  financial  agency  of  the  city. 
In  San  Francisco  84  per  cent  of  tlie 
entire  expense  of  the 
city  is  raised  by  taxa- 
tion. San  Francisco  has 
been  fortunate  in  the 
selection  of  its  Asses- 
sors during  the  past 
sixteen  years;  not  a 
suspicion  lias  been 
voiced  against  t  li  e  i  r 
ability  or  integrity. 
Doctor  Wasliington 
Dodge  served  four  con- 
secutive terms  and 
John  G  i  n  t  y,  present 
.Assessor,  was  ap- 
pointed on  Doctor 
Dodge's  recommenda- 
tion. In  a  letter  to  the 
mayor.  Doctor  Dodge 
said: 

"I  know  of  no  one  in 
the  city  that  could  be- 
gin    to    discharge     the 
duties   of  the   office   as 
efficiently   as   John 
Ginty.  He  is  thorough- 
ly   informed    on    the 
laws     governing     tax- 
ation   and    had   always 
taken    a    deep    interest 
in  matters   relating   to 
this  subject  previous  to  his  connection 
with   the   office.     I   engaged   him   as   my 
Chief  Deputy  on  account  of  his  expert 
knowledge." 

Mr.  Ginty  has  carried  out  all  the  good 
features  of  Doctor  Dodge's  adminis- 
tration and  has  added  further  improve- 
ments which  will  save  the  City  and 
County  thousands  of  dollars  annually. 
To  aid  in  the  work  of  appraising  prop- 
erty he  keeps  a  ledger  account  of  each 
block  in  the  city,  and  posts  to  the  ac- 
count the  sale  of  property  as  reported 
each  day,  also  all  building  permits  or 
contracts  affecting  building  operations 
in  each  block. 

Notwithstanding  that  80  per  cent  of 
the  deeds  recorded  state  only  a  nominal 
consideration,  Mr.  Ginty  always  ferrets 
out  and  finds  the  true  consideration 
paid.  On  completion  of  a  l^uilding  it  is 
inspected,  measured  and  appraised  by  a 
set  of  tables  covering  different  classes 
of  buildings  showing  an  average  cost 
per  cubic  or  square  foot  to  build.  These 
are  compiled  from  architect  tables  and 
from  actual  cost  prices  of  thousands  of 
houses  erected  since  the  great  fire  of 
1906. 

The  assessed  values  of  land  are  based 
on  a  unit  front  foot  value  in  each  block, 
with  table  calculations  for  varying 
depth  of  the  lot  and  corner  influences, 
similar  to  the  Somers  system  but  based 
on  compilations  made  from  sales  in  this 
city  for  a  number  of  years  and  reflecting 
the  community  idea  of  values  as  ex- 
pressed in  sales  since  1906. 


Mr.  Ginty  also  is  the  inventor  of  an 
ingenious  map  and  street  guide  by  which 
a  stranger  in  the  city  could,  inside  of 
one  minute,  locate  on  the  map  any  block 
of  land,  public  building  or  given  ad- 
dress, and  the  street  car  line  that  would 
carry  him  there.  Travelers  familiar 
with  the  Baedeker 
guide,  used  in  most 
European  cities  and 
witli  the  street  guides 
of  the  principal  cities 
of  the  United  States, 
declare  tliat  Mr.  Ginty's 
map  and  street  guide 
is  superior  to  any 
guide  book  they  have 
had  occasion  to  use. 

Quiet  and  unassum- 
ing, Mr.  Ginty  is  al- 
ways ready  to  listen  to 
complaints  of  tax 
payers  and  to  investi- 
gate alleged  errors  and 
grant  reductions  in  as- 
sessments that  the  law 
or  the  circumstances 
will    permit. 

Socially,  he  prefers 
the  quiet  of  his  own 
home  and  the  company 
of  his  family.  At  the 
early  age  of  fourteen 
he  left  school  to  enter 
a  printing  office,  with 
the  intention  of  mak- 
ing journalism  his  life 
work.  Not  liking  it, 
however,  he  drifted  into  railroading  and 
after  learning  telegraphy  rapidly  ad- 
vanced until  he  was  a  station  agent, 
superintendent  clerk  and  acting  train 
dispatcher.  The  wanderlust  born  in 
him  led  him  to  come  in  1868  to  Cali- 
fornia. Here  he  has  been  for  the  past 
forty  years  actively  engaged  in  busi- 
ness, most  of  the  time  in  banking.  He 
has  filled  with  credit  important  execu- 
tive positions  in  National  banks,  sav- 
ings banks  and  loan  and  mortgage  com- 
panies in  various  parts  of  the  State, 
giving  him  an  experience  in  land  ap- 
praising, as  a  credit  man  and  as  an 
expert  accountant  that  has  been  valu- 
able in  his  present  work. 

This  is  the  first  political  office  held 
by  Mr.  Ginty,  although  he  has  always 
taken  an  interest  in  public  matters  and 
is  a  member  of  several  charitable 
societies,  fraternal  organizations  and 
clubs  organized  for  the  study  of  civic 
conditions.  His  father  and  three 
brothers  served  in  the  Civil  War,  two 
of  the  brothers  being  killed  in  battle. 
An  Assessor  is,  in  many  respects,  the 
most  important  official  the  people  elect. 
His  discretion,  judgment  and  honesty 
vitally  affect  every  tax  payer.  It  is  of 
vast  consequence  to  the  progress  and 
welfare  of  the  people  that  they  choose 
a  competent  and  upright  Assessor, 
since  one  either  incapable  or  wanting 
in  integrity  may  do  incalculable  harm. 
Measured  by  this  standard,  Mr.  Ginty 
has  no  rival  in  the  hearts  of  the  people. 


271 


T.  SEYMOUR  HALL 


A  DISTINCTIVELY  new  method  of 
dealing-  in  securities  is  that 
worked  out  and  put  into  force  by 
T.  Seymour  Hall,  secretary-treas- 
urer and  managing  director  of  the  Oak- 
land Street  Improvement  Bond  Com- 
pany. He  has  simplified  this  form  of 
financial  transaction, 
has  educated  the  in- 
vesting public  up  to 
the  change  and  has 
placed  the  entire  plan 
on  a  solid  foundation 
that  insures  complete 
confidence  on  the  part 
of  his  patrons. 

Street  improvement 
bonds,  issued  in  odd 
denominations  with 
partial  payment  on  the 
principal  due  each 
year,  are  not  sold  out- 
right by  Mr.  Hall's 
concern.  Instead,  the 
bonds,  chosen  with 
great  care  as  to  their 
soundness  and  worth, 
are  deposited  in  trust, 
and  trust  receipts  in 
even  denominations 
and  for  definite  matur- 
ities are  issued  and 
sold.  Tliese  receipts 
entitle  the  holder  to 
the  amount  of  his  in- 
vestment in  original- 
form  bonds  held  by  the 
trustee,  and  he  can  se- 
cure these  bonds,  if  he  so  desires,  at 
any  time  upon  presentation  of  his  trust 
receipts. 

The  security  is  exactly  the  same  as 
where  the  bonds  are  sold  outright.  Only 
the  form  of  the  transaction  is  different, 
and  the  new  form  is  superior  to  the  old 
because  of  its  great  convenience.  The 
security  holder,  too,  is  absolutely  safe. 
He  simply  cannot  lose.  Not  only  have 
the  bonds  been  standardized  and  found 
to  be  of  sterling  worth  before  they  are 
handled  by  Mr.  Hall  at  all,  but  the  in- 
vestor is  absolutely  independent  of  the 
bond  house,  for  his  securities  are  in 
the  hands  of  a  third  party,  the  disin- 
terested trustee,  where  they  can  be  had 
at  any  time. 

By  the  very  merit  of  its  plan  and  by 
means  also  of  national  advertising — 
this  is  the  first  time,  by  the  way,  a 
California  security,  as  such,  has  been 
nationally  advertised — the  Oakland 
Street  Improvement  Bond  Company  is 
receiving  a  very  satisfactory  response. 
It  is  especially  conservative  in  the 
choice  of  its  bonds,  and  from  its  ever 
growing  clientele  has  never  come  any- 
thing  but   confidence    and   appreciation. 

Mr.  Hall,  who  has  been  more  instru- 
mental than  any  other  man  in  working 
out  the  details  of  the  new  investment 
plan,  was  born  February  16,  1880,  at 
Honolulu,  H.  I.  His  father,  W.  W.  Hall, 
was  proprietor  of  B.  O.  Hall  &  Son,  Ltd., 
the  largest  American  hardware  firm  in 
the  islands.  His  mother  was  Elizabeth 
(Van  Cleve)  Hall.     After  taking  a  pre- 


paratory course  at  Oahu  College,  Mr. 
Hall  came  in  1897  to  Berkeley,  where  he 
attended  high  school.  In  1900  he  entered 
the  University  of  California  with  the 
class  of  1904,  but  after  a  year  entered 
Harvard  with  the  class  of  '05,  taking  a 
general  social  science  course. 

Force  of  c  i  r  c  u  m- 
stances  made  it  nec- 
essary for  Mr.  Hall  to 
leave  Harvard  in  the 
spring  of  1902,  before 
graduation.  He  en- 
rolled at  the  school  of 
the  Simmonds  Hard- 
ware Company  at  St. 
Louis,  maintained  for 
the  convenience  o  f 
prospective  hardware 
dealers,  and  took  a 
general  business 
course.  Then  for  a 
year  and  a  half  he  w^as 
on  the  road  for  the 
Simmonds  Company, 
but  in  1907  resigned 
and  returned  to  Berke- 
ley, where  he  associ- 
ated himself  with  the 
real  estate  firm  of  Ma- 
son-McDuffie  Company. 
After  a  year  with  the 
Mason-McDviffle  Com- 
pany Mr.  Hall  launched 
out  independently  in 
the  mortgage  loan 
business  in  Berkeley. 
In  November,  1909,  he 
was  married  to  Miss  Ruth  Houghton  of 
Oakland  and  immediately  thereafter 
was  called  back  to  Honolulu  by  the 
ill  health  of  his  father.  For  a  year  he 
was  in  charge  of  the  automobile  depart- 
ment of  E.  O.  Hall  &  Son,  the  business 
founded  by  his  grandfather.  Then  fol- 
lowing his  father's  death  in  May,  1911. 
he  sold  the  hardware  business  and  in 
1912  returned,  this  time  to  Oakland, 
where  he  again  engaged  in  mortgage 
loans. 

During  Mr.  Hall's  experience  in  the 
mortgage  business  he  had  devoted  con- 
siderable time  to  the  collection  of  data 
and  to  the  study  of  mortgage  institu- 
tions of  this  country  and  Europe,  with 
particular  attention  to  the  methods  of 
the  great  Credit  Foncier  of  France. 
The  application  of  this  knowledge, 
which  proved  invaluable,  was  made  pos- 
sible w^hen  he  turned  to  the  study  of 
the  California  street  improvement  bond. 
He  helped  organize  the  Oakland  Street 
Improvement  Bond  Company,  through 
which  his  ideas  have  been  worked  out 
with  great  success.  As  the  firm's  clien- 
tele and  operations  grow,  it  is  proba- 
ble that  it  will  handle  municipal  bonds 
In  addition  to  the  securities  it  now 
carries. 

Mr.  Hall's  social  activities  are  con- 
fined to  the  Athenian-Nile  Club  of  Oak- 
land and  the  Phi  Delta  Theta  fra- 
ternity. He  has  two  sons,  Seymour 
Houghton  Hall,  aged  five,  and  Win- 
slow  William  Hall,  aged  three  and  a 
half. 


272 


WENDELL  P.  HAMMON 


THE  name  of  Wendell  P.  Hammon 
is  as  naturally  associated  with 
the  idea  of  the  development  of 
Northern  California  as  the  name 
California  itself  is  associated  with  the 
idea  of  a  domain  of  gold  and  prosperity, 
of  fruit  and  flowers,  of  sunshine  and 
health.  Oroville  knows 
him  as  a  man  who  did 
much  to  bring  the 
town  out  of  the  leth- 
argy that  followed 
the  mining  boom,  and 
make  it  a  solid,  pro- 
gressive community; 
San  Francisco  and  the 
rest  of  the  State  know 
him  as  a  business  man 
Of  high  enterprise  and 
unimpeachable  integ- 
rity. 

It  is,  perhaps,  as  a 
pioneer  in  the  field  of 
gold  dredging  that 
,Mr.  Hammon  is  the 
bestknown.  Not 
that  he  has  confined 
himself  to  this,  how- 
ever. He  has  been, 
and  is  yet,  deeply 
interested  in  the  grow- 
ing of  fruit,  particu- 
larly of  oranges,  and 
is  connected  in  one 
way  or  another  with  a 
number  of  corporations  of  varied  scope. 
Born  May  23,  1854,  at  Conneautville, 
Crawford  County,  Pennsylvania,  Mr. 
Hammon  is  the  son  of  Marshall  M.  Ham- 
mon and  Harriet  S.  (Cooper)  Hammon. 
His  paternal  ancestors  settled  at  Provi- 
dence, R.  I.,  about  the  year  1726.  Fol- 
lowing a  course  in  the  primary  and 
grammar  schools  of  his  birthplace  Mr. 
Hammon  attended  the  State  Normal 
School  at  Edinboro,  Erie  County.  He 
left  the  institution  in  1875,  before  grad- 
uation, however,  to  come  to  California. 
Arriving  here,  looking  for  an  open- 
ing, Mr.  Hammon  secured  a  position 
as  salesman  for  the  fruit  importing 
concern  of  L.  Green  &  Sons  of  Perry, 
Ohio.  He  took  a  keen  interest  in  the 
fruit  industry  and  two  years  later,  see- 
ing the  opportunity  of  launching  out 
for  himself,  engaged  in  tlie  nursery 
business.  Meanwhile  he  studied  the 
subject  deeply  and  in  a  few  years  he 
was  being  spoken  of  as  an  authority 
on  horticulture.  His  removal  to  Butte 
County,  which  was  to  be  the  scene  of 
most  of  his  future  operations,  came  in 
1890,  w^hen  he  planted  a  large  orchard 
about  ten  miles  below  Oroville  near  the 
Feather  River.  He  devoted  most  of 
the  next  ten  years  to  fruit  growing, 
although  he  had  begun  to  investigate 
mining  and  operated  in  a  rather  small 
way  in  Eastern  Oregon,  Idaho  and  Ari- 
zona. 

Ever  since  the  days  of  the  Argonauts 
it  had  been  generally  known  that  there 
was  gold  in  Butte  County.    Oroville  was 


at  one  time  an  important  mining  cen- 
ter; but  then  came  tlie  slump  and  the 
field  was  practically  abandoned.  The 
Chinese  had  worked  the  flats  along  the 
Feather  River  by  their  crude  methods, 
but  even  they  had  given  it  up  as  not 
commercially  profitable. 

Mr.  Hammon  was 
astonished,  when  a 
well  was  being  sunk 
on  his  property,  to  dis- 
cover  excellent  pay 
gravel.  He  looked  fur- 
tlier,  then  secured  an 
option  on  about  a 
thousand  acres  and 
prospected  it  t  h  o  r- 
oughly.  Tlie  result  was 
gratifying,  but  tliere 
remained  the  question 
of  how  mining  could 
be  carried  on,  on  a 
large  scale.  Gold 
dredging  had  never 
been  succes^^ful  on  the 
Pacific  Coast  up  to  that 
time,  and  this  method 
appeared  impractical 
until  Mr.  Hammon  ran 
across  a  new  type  of 
dredger  then  in  use  on 
the  Cliicago  drainage 
canal.  He  had  a  sim- 
ilar dredger  built,  or- 
ganized the  Feather 
River  Exploration  Company,  and  began 
operations  Marcii   1,   1898. 

As  in  the  case  of  nearly  every  new 
enterprise,  progress  in  the  gold  dredg- 
ing was  difficult.  There  were  those  wlio 
scoffed,  wlio  declared  the  project  was 
certain  to  fail.  For  a  time  it  was  all 
expenditure,  with  no  returns.  But  the 
dredger  was  gradually  improved  until 
success  was  assured.  The  rest  of  the 
story  is  so  well  known  as  not  to  need 
the  telling.  Let  it  sufl;ice  to  say  that 
today  W.  P.  Hammon  directs  the 
largest  gold-dredging  operations  in  the 
world,  and  that  his  companies  have  con- 
trol of  more  than  10,000  acres  of  land 
in  California  and  Oregon — with  more 
than  thirty  dredgers  at  work.  Among 
his  corporations  engaged  in  this  indus- 
try are  the  Yuba  Consolidated  Gold 
Fields,  Calaveras  Dredging  Co.,  and 
Powder  River  Gold  Dredging  Co. 

He  continues  to  bo  a  big  factor  in 
the  fruit  growing  industry,  as  president 
of  the  Oroville  Orange  and  Olive 
Groves,  and  operates  his  own  packing 
plants.  Besides  tliis  he  is  interested  as 
officer  or  director  in  the  Finnell  Land 
Co.,  Hammon  Engineering  Co.,  Plumas 
Investment  Co.,  Santuario  Co.,  the  Yuba 
Construction  Co.  and  Sierra  Pacific  Elec- 
tric Co. 

One  of  Mr.  Hammon's  latest  acliieve- 
ments  was  the  organization  of  the  Ven- 
tura Consolidated  Oil  Fields,  whose 
stock  is  listed  on  the  Boston  Stock  Ex- 
change. Subsidiaries  of  this  are  the 
Montebello  Oil  Co.  and  the  Ventura  Re- 
fining Co. 


273 


JOHN  R.   HANIFY 


NEARLY  every  business  man  has 
some  sort  of  relaxation — some 
sport  or  hobby  whicli  brings  him 
rest  and  change  from  the  daily 
routine  of  work.  For  some  It  is  athlet- 
ics, for  others  reading,  for  others  the 
making  of  collections  of  one  kind  or 
another.  For  John  R. 
Hanify,  founder  and 
head  of  J.  R.  Hanify 
Co.,  lumber  manufac- 
turers and  dealers,  it 
is  yachting. 

"When,  just  a  few 
weeks  ago,  Mr.  Hanify 
won  with  his  racing 
sloop  Westward  tlie 
magnificent  gold  cup 
offered  l)y  King  George 
V  of  Great  Britain  he 
but  demonstrated 
again  liis  prowess  as  a 
sailor  of  yachts.  He 
did  not  gain  for  him- 
self by  this  latest  coup 
a  reputation  as  a 
yachtsman.  The  rep- 
utation was  already 
his. 

Throughout,  the  ca- 
reer of  John  R.  Hanify 
has  been  a  succession 
of  personal  efforts 
rightly  directed. ,  Born 
in  New  York  City  Sep- 
tember 15,  1862,  his  father  was  Francis 
Hanify,  at  one  time  in  charge  of  the 
damage  claims  department  of  the  Inman 
line  of  steamships,  and  his  mother  was 
Bridget  (Ryder)  Hanify.  He  attended  St. 
Francis Xavier  College  in  New  York,  but 
in  1876,  following  his  mother's  death, 
accompanied  his  father  to  California. 
The  intention  was  to  return  to  New 
York,  but  the  elder  Hanify  passed  away 
a  few  months  after  his  arrival  on  the 
Coast  and  the  boy  was  left  to  shift  for 
himself.  He  was  not  quite  14  years  old. 
Mr.  Hanify  succeeded  in  landing  a 
position  as  offlce  boy  with  the  Moore  & 
Smith  Lumber  Company.  Thus  began  a 
successful  17  years'  connection  with  this 
firm.  He  rose  from  ofRce  boy  to  book- 
keeper, to  cashier,  to  office  manager 
and  finally  became  general  manager  of 
the  concern,  and  gained  valuable  prac- 
tical experience  in  the  manufacturing 
end  of  the  industry. 

In  1893  Mr.  Hanify  went  into  business 
for  himself  under  the  firm  name  "J.  R. 
Hanify,"  accepting  the  selling  agency 
for  various  sawmills.  After  three  or  four 
years  he  took  in  as  a  partner  Albert  C. 
Hooper,  son  of  John  A.  Hooper,  and 
changed  the  firm  name  to  J.  R.  Hanify  & 
Co.  At  the  same  time  he  became  inter- 
ested in  the  manufacture  as  well  as  the 
sale  of  lumber,  and  began  building 
sailing  vessels  and  steamers  for  the 
transportation  of  their  products.  The 
firm  also  became  owners  of  a  substan- 
tial tract  of  timber  land  in  Humboldt 
County,  and  of  50  per  cent  of  the  stock 


of  the  Bucksport  &  Elk  River  Railroad 
Co.,  connecting  the  Elk  River  lumber 
mill  with  the  shipping  point  on  Hum- 
boldt bay. 

Mr.  Hanify  purchased  the  assets  of  the 
copartnership  in  1906  and  Mr.  Hooper 
retired  from  the  firm.  For  a  little  more 
than  a  year  Mr.  Hanify 
operated  alone,  but  in 
April,  1907,  incorpo- 
rated under  the  name 
of  the  J.  R.  Hanify  Co., 
allowing  each  of  his 
older  employes  to  ac- 
quire a  substantial  in- 
terest in  the  business. 
He  has  built  six  steam- 
ers, although  he  now 
operates  but  three, 
having  disposed  of  the 
smaller  ones.  One  of 
his  largest  vessels  is 
the  Francis  Hanify,  a 
combination  tanker 
and  lumber  carrier  de- 
signed for  coast-to- 
coast  trade  through 
the  Panama  Canal.  He 
also  has  built  eight 
sailing  vessels,  three  of 
which  he  now  operates. 
In  civic  affairs  Mr. 
Hanify  has  been  ac- 
tively interested.  For 
a  number  of  years  he 
was  a  member  of  the  appeals  committee 
of  the  San  Francisco  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce. He  also  was  a  member  of  the 
Commerce  Chamber  party  that  about 
three  years  ago  visited  Japan  to  fur- 
ther the  commercial  relations  between 
San  Francisco  and  the  Orient. 

Ever  since  he  was  15  or  16  years  old 
Mr.  Hanify  has  been  deeply  interested 
in  amateur  yachting.  The  first  sloop 
lie  owned  was  the  Myrtle,  a  32-foot 
boat.  Since  that  time  he  has  built  three 
schooner  yachts,  although  the  only  one 
he  owns  at  present  is  the  Martha.  He 
has  built  two  motorboats  and  still 
operates  one  of  them,  the  Scout. 

The  sloop  Westward  is  Mr.  Hanify's 
pride.  It  was  built  especially  for  the 
Panama-Pacific  Exposition  races  and 
was  designed  by  William  Gardner  of 
New  York,  designer  also  of  the  Vanitie, 
which  has  been  competing  with  the 
Resolute  as  a  candidate  for  the  defense 
of  the  American  cup.  The  Westward 
has  won  every  time  she  has  started. 
She  has  won  one  race  for  the  Sir  Thomas 
Lipton  cup,  which  must  be  w^on  three 
times,  and  also  brought  to  her  owner 
the  beautiful  King  George  cup  last 
August. 

Mr.  Hanify  was  for  two  years  com- 
modore of  the  San  Francisco  Yacht 
Club,  in  1909-10,  and  is  a  member  also 
of  the  Corinthian  Yacht  Club  of  New 
York.  He  is  a  director  of  the  Olympic 
Club  of  San  Francisco,  and  a  member 
of  the  Pacific  Union,  Bohemian  and 
others. 


274 


CARL  A.   HENRY 


IN  an  adage  of  such  long-  standing  that 
its  inception  goes  far  back  into  the 
mists  of  antiquity,  young  men  are 
solemnly  advised  that  in  order  to  at- 
tain eminence  in  this  world  of  competi- 
tion they  must  begin  at  the  very  bottom 
in  some  line  of  work  and  struggle  up- 
ward by  degrees.  Then, 
once  up,  they  will  re- 
main up. 

Glancing  over  the 
careers  of  men  who 
have  gained  eminence 
in  their  respective 
lines  in  San  Francisco 
and  California,  it  is 
wonderful  to  note  to 
how  many  of  them  this 
ancient  rule  applies. 
The  number  that 
started  in  as  office  boys 
is  staggering.  There 
seems  to  be  another 
rule — less  thought  of 
as  such  but  neverthe- 
less true — that  a  youth, 
if  he  has  it  in  him  to 
be  a  first-class  office 
boy,  has  it  in  liim  also 
to  develop  into  a  flrst- 
class  business  man. 
And  most  of  them  do 
develop  thus. 

Carl  A.  Henry,  one  of 
the  most  widely  known  business  men  on 
the  Pacific  Coast  today,  started  his  ca- 
reer as  an  office  boy.  That  is,  he  really 
started  out  as  a  newsboy.  Before  and 
after  school  he  delivered  newspapers  in 
San  Francisco's  financial  section.  This 
lasted  some  time,  iintil  he  was  about 
14  years  old  in  fact,  when  he  secured 
a  position  as  office  boy  with  one  of  his 
customers. 

Just  about  thirty  years  have  passed 
since  Mr.  Henry  left  the  Boys'  High 
School  and  began  shifting  for  himself. 
Today  he  is  one  of  the  joint  agents  in 
the  Pacific  department  of  several  of  the 
world's  leading  fire  insurance  com- 
panies; and,  besides  this,  he  is  vice- 
president  of  the  Owl  Drug  Company, 
one  of  the  foremost  concerns  of  its  kind 
in  the  United  States. 

Mr.  Henry  was  born  May  21,  1872,  at 
San  Jose,  California.  Wlien  Mr.  Henry 
was  still  a  small  boy  his  parents  moved 
to  San  Francisco  and  it  was  in  the  pub- 
lic schools  of  this  city  that  he  gained 
his   education. 

From  office  boy  in  an  insurance  firm 
Mr.  Henry  rose  steadily  until  he  was 
placed  in  charge  of  the  office  work. 
About  1893  he  saw  an  opportunity  to 
engage  in  the  insurance  business  for 
himself,  and  embraced  it.  He  became 
local  agent  for  a  number  of  important 
Are  insurance  companies,  and  built 
up     the     business     until     he     had     the 


largest     agency     of     its     sort     in     the 
city. 

Until  1899  Mr.  Henry  retained  these 
agencies,  but  in  the  latter  year  he 
dropped  them  and  took  over  instead  the 
general  agencies  of  the  Sun  Insurance 
Office  of  London  founded  in  1710  and 
the  oldest  insurance 
company  in  the  world. 
Sun  Underwriters 
Agency  of  London,  and 
the  Michigan  Fire  and 
Marine  of  Detroit. 

A  few  years  ago  Mr. 
Henry  merged  his 
business  with  that  of 
Willard  O.  "Wayman, 
representing  as  gen- 
eral agent  the  National 
of  Hartford,  Colonial 
Fire  Underwriters 
Agency  and  the  Me- 
chanics &  Traders  of 
New  Orleans.  The  con- 
cern does  the  largest 
fire  insurance  business 
west  of  Chicago.  The 
combined  resources  of 
its  six  companies  is 
$52,000,000.  Its  terri- 
tory extends  as  far 
east  as,  and  including, 
Colorado,  and  e  m- 
braces  California,  Ne- 
vada, Utah,  Arizona,  Washington,  Ore- 
gon, Idaho,  Montana,  Hawaii,  Alaska 
and  Britisli  Columbia.  Branch  offices 
are  maintained  in  Los  Angeles,  Port- 
land, Seattle,  Spokane  and  Denver. 

For  the  past  seven  years  Mr.  Henry 
has  been  vice-president  of  the  Owl 
Drug  Company,  and  with  R.  E.  Miller, 
the  president,  controls  the  concern. 
He  has  injected  his  personality  into  the 
"Owl"  as  he  has  injected  it  into  the 
insurance  field,  and  the  results  have 
been  equally  as  apparent.  He  is  a  vital 
force  in  tlie  conducting  of  the  com- 
pany's business  affairs,  acting  chiefly  in 
an  advisory  capacity.  His  enthusiasm 
for  doing  things  well,  for  accepting 
nothing  short  of  the  very  best,  is 
almost  proverbial. 

Mr.  Henry  belongs  to  a  number  of 
social  organizations,  among  them  the 
Claremont  Country  Club  and  Athenian 
Club  of  Oakland,  and  the  Olympic  and 
Bohemian  Clubs  of  San  Francisco,  as 
well  as  to  Yerba  Buena  Parlor  of  the 
Native  Sons.  Fraternally  he  is  a  Ma- 
son, holding  membership  in  Golden  Gate 
Commandery,  K.  T.,  and  in  Islam  Tem- 
ple  of   the    Shrine. 

As  a  relaxation  from  business  Mr. 
Henry  indulges  in  deep-sea  fishing, 
principally  at  Monterey  and  Santa  Cruz. 
He  also  owns  a  number  of  fine  Airedale 
terriers,  some  of  which  have  won  blue 
ribbons. 


275 


ALFRED  HERTZ 


IT  was  a  distinct  compliment  to  Cal- 
ifornia and  tlie  West  ■when  Alfred 
Hertz  consented  to  come  here  to  di- 
rect the  San  Francisco  Symphony 
Orchestra.  He  has  been  called  "the 
big  man  of  the  Metropolitan  Grand 
Opera,"  and  as  a  big-  man  he  was  wel- 
comed to  San  Fran- 
cisco  last   July. 

Perhaps  it  is  well  to 
introduce  Hertz  with 
the  same  words  used  in 
The  San  Francisco 
Chronicle,  upon  the  oc- 
casion of  his  initial  ap- 
pearance in  San  Fran- 
cisco August  6th  last, 
directing  the  Exposi- 
tion Orchestra,  aug- 
mented to  more  than 
100  musicians,  in  the 
great  Beethoven  con- 
cert at  the  Civic  Audi- 
t  o  r  i  u  m.  Said  The 
Chronicle : 

"A  giant  of  energy. 
Hertz  employs  his 
forces  in  quantities  to 
be  estimated  only  in 
terms  of  superlative 
power.  It  seemed  as 
though  by  sheer  appli- 
cation of  his  own  vigor 
he  himself  played  ev- 
erything from  tympani 
to  contrabasso.  Ha 
epitomized  the  ener- 
gies of  one  hundred 
men  and  in  the  climaxes  exposed  a 
Dionysiac  joy  in  their  tumultuous 
shoutings;  he  summed  up  in  his  person 
the  efficiency  of  all  and  added  thereto 
a  surplus  of  force  which  directed  them 
all  and  controlled  them;  or,  once  or 
twice,  condemned  them  all  when  in  the 
failure  to  ride  as  fast  and  as  far  and 
as  high  as  he  willed,  the  members  of 
the  great  orchestra  faltered.  At  such 
moments  Hertz  was  not  to  be  regarded 
as  a  being  of  sartorial  propriety,  nor 
even  as  one  amenable  to  the  conven- 
tions which  politely  ignore  sweat.  He 
wrestled  with  a  god  on  the  mountain, 
and  he  did  not  let  him  go  until  he  had 
the  victory." 

A  native  of  Germany,  Alfred  Hertz 
was  born  July  15,  1872,  at  Frankfort-on- 
the-Main,  the  son  of  Leo  Hertz  and 
Sara  (Koenigswerther)  Hertz.  Follow- 
ing his  preliminary  education  at  Frank- 
fort Gymnasium,  he  began  liis  so  fruit- 
ful study  of  music  at  Raff  Conserva- 
torium,  Frankfort.  How  rapidly  he  ad- 
vanced in  this  great  conservatory 
founded  by  Joachim  Raff  and  Hans  von 
Buelow  as  president,  may  be  gathered 
from  the  fact  that  upon  his  graduation 
from  his  courses  in  piano,  theory,  in- 
strumentation and  musical  history  he 
was  appointed,  when  not  yet  twenty 
years  old,  to  the  directorship  of  the 
Hoftheater  at  Altenburg  in  Saxony. 
Here,  at  the  age  of  twenty,  he  was 
decorated  with  the  Order  of  Art  and 
Science  of  Saxony.  Here,  also,  he  pro- 
duced for  the  first  time  anywhere  Hum- 
perdinck's    "Hansel   and    Gretel." 


Until  1S95  Mr.  Hertz  filled  this  posi- 
tion at  Altenburg  with  ever  increasing 
success.  Then  he  was  called  to  Barmen- 
Elberfeld,  where  for  four  years  he  was 
conductor  of  opera  and  concerts  at  the 
Stadttheater.  In  the  spring  of  1899  the 
works  of  Fritz  Delius,  then  somewhat 
obscure,  were  to  con- 
stitute a  program  at 
St.  James'  Hall,  Lon- 
don. Delius  had  heard 
Hertz  in  Elberfeld,  and 
prevailed  upon  him  to 
conduct  the  rendition 
of  Delius'  works. 

By  this  time  Hertz' 
fame  as  a  conductor 
had  spread  all  over 
Europe.  During  his 
London  engagement 
Maurice  Grau  offered 
the  young  man  the 
baton  that  Anton  Seidl 
had  laid  down.  It  w^as 
a  distinct  honor,  but 
one  which  Hertz  was 
unable  to  accept  just 
at  that  time,  as  he  had 
a  three-year  contract 
to  fulfill  at  the  Stadt- 
theater, Breslau.  This 
contract  he  carried 
out. 

In  1902  the  way  was 
clear  to  bring  Hertz  to 
America.  Grau  re- 
newed his  offers  and 
the  brilliant  young 
conductor  accepted,  assuming  at  once 
the  musical  direction  of  the  Metropoli- 
tan Grand  Opera  forces  in  New  York. 
On  December  24,  1903,  Hertz  directed 
the  first  performance  of  "Parsifal"  ever 
heard  outside  of  Bayreuth,  and  on  Jan- 
uary 22,  1907,  the  first  and  only  per- 
formance at  the  Metropolitan  Opera 
House  of  Richard  Strauss'  "Salome." 
He  directed  the  first  performance  of 
"Konigskinder"  December  28,  1910,  at 
the  Metropolitan,  and  he  was  responsible 
for  first  production  of  important  Amer- 
ican novelties,  such  as  "Pipe  of  Desire" 
by  Converse,  "Mona"  by  Horatio  Parker, 
and  "Cyrano  de  Bergerac"  by  Walter 
Damrosch.  One  of  his  chief  triumphs 
was  the  first  production  of  Richard 
Strauss'   "Der  Rosencavalier." 

For  thirteen  successive  and  success- 
ful years  Hertz  remained  at  the  Metro- 
politan as  conductor,  and  then  resigned. 
His  departure  was  the  occasion  for  one 
of  the  greatest  demonstrations  ever  ac- 
corded a  musician.  But  he  left,  he  said, 
in  order  to  devote  himself  to  "the  higher 
things  in   music." 

His  next  move  was  to  convert  the 
loosely  organized  Los  Angeles  Sym- 
phony Orchestra  into  a  compact  band 
capable  of  the  greatest  and  nicest  ef- 
fects, in  order  to  produce  Parker's  new 
$10,000  prize  opera,  "Fairyland."  Then 
he  was  brought  to  San  Francisco 
and  given  the  musical  directorship 
of  our  Symphony  Orchestra  with  prac- 
tically unlimited  powers.  And  the 
fruits  of  his  endeavors  are  soon  to  be 
seen. 


276 


I 


HOWARD   C.  HOLMES 


IN  this  day  and  age  we  have  come 
to  take  nearly  everything  for 
granted.  A  big  engineering  proj- 
ect makes  life  easier  for  us — we 
consider  it  only  for  a  moment,  then 
accept  it  without  further  ado.  Only 
a  few  of  us  go  behind  the  achieve- 
ment and  consider  the 
ingenuity  it  typifies, 
or  the  man  who  made 
it   possible. 

One  of  the  first 
things  noticed  by  a 
visitor  to  San  Fran- 
cisco is  the  city's  fa- 
mous ferry  terminal. 
This  was  built  under 
the  direction  of  How- 
ard Carlton  Holmes, 
civil  and  consulting 
engineer,  who  has  con- 
ceived and  put  into 
execution  so  many 
projects  as  to  make 
himself  an  exception 
to  the  general  rule 
that  the  men  behind 
achievements  of  this 
sort  are  little  known. 
Rather,  he  is  recog- 
nized up  and  down  the 
Pacific  Coast  as  one  of 
the  foremost  engineers 
west  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains. 

Since  the  age  of 
seventeen  Mr.  Holmes  has  been  iden- 
tified with  engineering.  He  was  born 
June  10,  1854,  at  Nantucket,  Massa- 
chusetts, and  when  five  years  old  came 
with  his  parents  to  San  Francisco.  His 
father,  C.  Holmes,  was  prominent  in 
the  early  history  of  San  Francisco  as  a 
miner,    then   as   a    building   contractor. 

After  receiving  his  education  in  the 
public  schools  of  this  city,  the  younger 
Mr.  Holmes  started  out  as  a  surveyor 
and  became  identified  with  a  number 
of  leading  engineers.  He  was  only 
nineteen  years  old  when  he  made  all 
the  contour  surveys  necessary  for  the 
development  of  Lake  Chabot,  Oak- 
land's principal  source  of  water  supply. 
At  twenty-one  Mr.  Holmes  passed  an 
examination  for  appointment  as  United 
States  deputy  surveyor.  Soon  after- 
ward he  became  assistant  engineer  of 
the  State  Board  of  Harbor  Commis- 
sioners, leaving  this  position  to  design 
and  build  the  Alameda  mole  and  depot 
for  the  South  Pacific  Coast  Railway 
Company. 

It  might  be  well  to  say  at  this  point 
that  the  millions  who  visited  the 
Panama-Pacific  Exposition  gazed  upon 
Mr.  Holmes'  work  when  they  viewed 
the  yacht  ■  harbor,  its  passenger  and 
freight  slips  and  all  the  other  exposi- 
tion water  terminals.  As  consulting 
engineer  on  docks  and  wharves  for  the 
exposition  he  designed  all  these  fea- 
tures. 

Mr.  Holmes  directed  his  attention 
to  street  railway  construction  when, 
in    1887-8,    he    built    the    Powell    Street 


Railroad,  known  as  the  Ferries  and 
Cliff  House  Railroad.  During  the  next 
few  years  he  built  the  cable  railroad 
at  Portland,  that  at  Spokane  and  the 
Madison  Street  Railroad  at  Seattle. 
Returning  to  San  Francisco  he  con- 
structed the  Sacramento  street  branch 
of  the  Powell  street 
road,  the  lower  end  of 
the  California  Street 
Cable  Railroad  and 
extended  the  Union 
Street  Cable  Rail- 
road from  Fillmore  to 
the  Presidio.  Later 
he  secured  the  con- 
tract for  the  electric 
street  railway  at 
Stockton. 

Becoming  chief  en- 
gineer of  the  Harbor 
Board  in  1892,  Mr. 
Holmes  built  the 
water  terminals  for 
all  the  railroads  run- 
ning into  San  Fran- 
cisco with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  Southern 
Pacific,  and  even  in 
the  latter's  slips  were 
installed  the  freight 
and  passenger  hoists 
invented  by  him.  One 
of  his  innovations  was 
a  teredo-proof  pile  for 
wharves,  concrete  over 
a  core  of  wooden  piles.  This  type  of 
pile  has  been  used  a  number  of  years 
with   great   success. 

As  chief  engineer  of  the  San  Fran- 
cisco, Oakland  &  San  Jose  Railroad 
Company,  the  Key  Route,  Mr.  Holmes 
designed  and  constructed  the  terminal 
mole  which  extends  16,000  feet  into  San 
Francisco  bay.  He  also  built  the  Sacra- 
mento electric  road  and  the  greater  part 
of  the  Oakland,  Alameda  &  Piedmont 
Railroad,  now  incorporated  with  the 
Oakland  Transit  Company. 

Resigning  in  1901  from  his  position 
with  the  Harbor  Board,  Mr.  Holmes 
became  chief  engineer  for  the  San  Fran- 
cisco Dry  Dock  Company.  He  built 
Hunter's  Point  Dry  Dock  No.  2,  at  that 
time  the  largest  graving  dock  on  the 
Pacific  Coast.  Later  he  prepared  plans 
for  dry  dock  No.  3  at  Hunter's  Point, 
one  of  the  world's  biggest  and  one  that 
will  care  for  the  greatest  ocean  liners 
and  battle-ships. 

Today,  in  the  East  as  well  as  the 
West,  Mr.  Holmes  is  considered  an  au- 
thority in  his  line.  In  1904  he  was 
commissioned  by  the  Boston  Harbor 
and  Land  Board  to  report  on  the  re- 
spective merits  of  graving  and  float- 
ing docks.  He  also  planned  the  Cana- 
dian Government's  dry  dock  at  Victoria. 
He  has  a  goodly  private  practice,  be- 
sides being  consulting  engineer  for  the 
Western  Pacific  Railway  Company  for 
docks  and  wharves. 

Mr.  Holmes  is  a  member  of  the  Ameri- 
can Society  of  Civil  Engineers  and  of 
various  other  prominent  professidnal, 
fraternal   and  social   organizations. 


277 


CHARLES  FREDERICK  HORNER 


ONE  of  the  first  things  that  impress 
the  visitor  to  California  is  the 
intense  loyalty  of  its  citizens. 
Whatever  is  indigenous  to — what- 
ever pertains  to — the  State  is  dear  to 
the  heart  of  every  Californian.  Of  all 
things  loved  the  best  is  the  "native 
son,"  the  one  who  from 
his  earliest  days  has 
lived  in  the  environ- 
ment of  its  mountains 
and  sunshine  and  boun- 
teous harvests;  and  it 
is  worthy  of  note  that 
a  large  percentage  of 
the  men  who  now 
direct  the  destinies  of 
the  State,  in  politics 
and  business,  belong 
to  this  class. 

In  this  regard,  the 
story  of  Charles  Fred- 
erick Horner,  assessor 
of  Alameda  County,  is 
worth  the  telling.  Mr. 
Horner  is  a  native  of 
the  Golden  State.  His 
father  came  West  with 
the  rush  of  '49,  and 
subsequently  was  a 
flour  miller  for  many 
years.  The  elder  Hor- 
ner was  a  native  of 
New  Jersey,  where  he 
spent  the  early  part  of 
his  life.  His  brother,  J.  M.  Horner, 
had  preceded  him  here  by  some  years, 
and  it  was  in  conjunction  with  this 
brother  that  he  entered  the  flour  mill- 
ing business.  In  fact,  the  honor  of 
founding  the  first  flour  mill  in  the 
State  belongs  to  J.  M.  Horner.  It  was 
located  at  Union  City  and  continued 
to  be  the  largest  producing  mill  in 
California  for  a  long  while.  The  two 
brothers  prospered  and  among  other 
things  received  a  Spanish  land  grant 
now  known  as  Horner's  Addition,  San 
Francisco. 

Charles  Frederick  Horner  was  born 
at  Irvington,  Cal.,  November  11,  1858, 
the  son  of  W.  Y.  and  Anna  Bmley 
Horner.  He  attended  the  primary 
schools  of  that  city  and  then  became  a 
scholar  at  Washington  College,  Irving- 
ton.  Some  time  after  leaving  college  he 
became  interested  in  the  culture  of 
sugar  and  determined  to  try  his  fortune 
in  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  where  he  went 
in  1879.  The  islands,  then  as  now,  de- 
pended on  sugar  as  their  main  crop  and 
the  field  of  opportunity  open  to  Mr. 
Horner  was  one  of  exceptional  advan- 
tages. He  was  not  slow  to  make  use  of 
every  favorable  circumstance  and  soon 
won  a  competence  from  the  trade.  With 
the  advancing  years  his  holdings  in- 
creased and  he  became  a  man  of  the 
largest  influence,  doing  an  annual  busi- 
ness of  big  proportions.  He  also  in- 
terested himself  in  public  questions  and 


served  two  terms  (1887-8)  as  a  member 
of  the  Hawaiian  Legislature.  His  bus- 
iness continued  to  prosper  and  he  was 
looked  upon  as  one  of  the  leading  fig- 
ures in  the  sugar  industry  of  what  is 
now  among  our  richest  insular  posses- 
sions. Owing  to  a  thorough  study  of 
the  subject,  Mr.  Hor- 
ner was  able  to  in- 
troduce many  improve- 
ments in  the  planting 
of  the  cane  and  its 
handling,  which  result- 
ed in  important  eco- 
nomic advance.  In 
short,  he  entered  into 
all  departments  of  the 
industry  and  helped 
materially  in  its  ex- 
pansion. 

Returning  to  the 
United  States  in  1896, 
Mr.  Horner  established 
himself  at  Centerville, 
Cal.,  and  lent  his  sup- 
port to  its  growth,  as- 
sisting every  under- 
taking with  the  public 
welfare  as  its  aim.  He 
is  well  known  in  a 
political  way,  and  was 
elected  Supervisor  of 
the  County  for  three 
terms  on  the  Republi- 
can ticket,  discharging 
the  duties  of  that  office  in  a  way  that 
has  received  general  approval.  Under 
his  administration  a  rule  of  economy 
and  efliciency  was  obtained,  resulting 
in  a  substantial  saving  to  the  com- 
munity. This  county  is  one  of  sin- 
gular wealth,  being  located  in  a  district 
blessed  with  every  advantage  of  Nature 
and  having  excellent  transit  facilities 
in  all  directions,  and  its  industrial  im- 
portance has  also  enhanced  in  recent 
years  until  there  are  few  counties  in  the 
State  which  can  point  to  a  finer  record 
of  growth  in  all  departments.  In  July, 
1911,  Mr.  Horner  was  appointed  by  the 
Board  of  Supervisors  of  Alameda  County 
assessor  to  fill  a  vacancy,  and  upon  as- 
suming the  duties  of  assessor  moved  to 
Oakland,  where  he  has  since  resided. 
Coming  to  the  ofl^ce  at  this  critical  stage 
of  the  county's  development,  Mr.  Horner 
has  met  with  a  complete  measure  of 
success  and  is  certainly  one  of  the  most 
popular  men  in  the  county. 

Mr.  Horner  is  an  active  member  of 
the  Native  Sons  of  the  Golden  West  and 
a  supporter  of  all  the  ideals  for  which 
that  organization  stands.  He  is  also 
affiliated  with  the  Masonic  Order,  the 
Knights  of  Pythias,  Woodmen  of  the 
World,  Druids,  Odd  Fellows,  Moose  and 
B.  P.  O.  Elks.  Although  a  busy  man  he 
finds  times  to  take  an  active  part  in  the 
affairs  of  all  and  stands  high  among 
fraternalists  of  the  State. 


278 


JAMES  IIORSBURGH,  JR. 


To  do  one-tenth  of  what  James 
Horsburgh,  Jr.,  has  accomplished 
in  the  interests  of  California, 
were  to  merit  everlasting  honor 
as  the  builder  of  an  emjjire.  And  to 
write  it,  doing  justice  to  a  myriad  of 
details,  were  to  begin  the  task  of  com- 
piling a  veritable  li- 
brary of  history. 

For  it  is  history  that 
James  Horsburgh,  Jr., 
has  made.  It  is  the 
history  of  California — 
its  growth  from  a  lit- 
tle-known section  to 
one  of  the  strongest 
and  most  wonderful 
States  in  the  Union. 
And  it  is  written  in 
millions  of  printed 
pages,  a  product  of  un- 
remitting effort  and  a 
fertile  brain. 

W  h  e  n,  just  a  few 
months  ago,  Mr.  Hors- 
burgli  resigned  as  gen- 
eral passenger  agent 
of  the  Southern  Pacific 
Company  to  handle 
Willys-Overland  auto- 
mobiles in  the  San 
Francisco  district,  the 
San  Francisco  Chroni- 
cle paid  him  this  trib- 
ute: 

"The  friends  of  James  Horsburgh,  Jr., 
predict  that  his  peculiar  genius,  liis 
never-failing,  hearty  good  nature  and 
his  immense  energy  will  find  a  wider 
and  better  expression  than  ever  before 
as  one  of  the  officials  of  the  Willys- 
Overland   organization." 

James  Horsburgh,  Jr.,  is  father  of  the 
famous  "Raisin  Day";  Sunset  Magazine 
was  conceived  and  started  by  him;  due 
to  his  preliminary  efforts  Imperial  Val- 
ley was  transformed  from  desert  into  a 
fertile  spot;  tons  of  literature  advertis- 
ing California  and  the  West  have  been 
written  by  him  and  distributed  to  the 
four  corners  of  the  world;  he  first 
brought  Luther  Burbank  into  public 
notice;  farmers'  institutes.  State  farms 
and  agricultural  demonstration  trains 
by  the  dozen  owe  their  being  to  him; 
convention  after  convention  has  lie 
brought  to  San  Francisco,  entertained 
the  delegates  and  sent  them  back  home 
rejoicing;  he  has  fostered  as  many  col- 
onization projects  as  perhaps  any  man 
in   California. 

Born  in  Edinburgh,  Scotland,  Mr. 
Horsburgh  removed  w^ith  his  parents 
to  Hamilton,  Canada,  when  he  was  but 
two  yeais  old.  He  began  railroading 
when  he  was  still  a  inere  youth,  first  as 
office  boy  in  the  office  of  the  general 
manager  and  treasurer  of  the  Great 
Western  Railway  in  Canada,  later  be- 
coming a  clerk  in  the  same  department. 
In  1873,  still  a  boy,  Mr.  Horsburgh 
came  to  California  and  became  a  rate 
clerk  in  the  general  passenger  depart- 
ment   of    the    Southern    Pacific.      Head- 


quarters were  then  in  Sacramento,  but 
soon  they  were  moved  to  San  Francisco 
and  Mr.  Horsburgh  came  here  with 
them.  Prom  clerk  ho  became  chief 
clerk  and,  in  October,  1884,  was  ap- 
pointed assistant  general  passenger 
agent.  In  April,  1906.  three  days  be- 
fore the  great  San 
Francisco  fire,  he  was 
made  general  passen- 
ger agent  upon  tlie  re- 
tirement from  that 
position  of  General  T. 
H.  Goodman. 

Immediately  M  r. 
Horsburgh  was 
thrown  into  a  situation 
that  was  almost  un- 
precedented. Under  the 
most  trying  conditions 
in  the  days  following 
the  fire  he  moved  244,- 
000  pe'rsons  out  of 
stricken  San  Francisco 
without  cost  to  them 
and  without  injuring  a 
single   one. 

It  was  upon  the  re- 
alization that  Califor- 
nia differed  from  other 
sections  of  the  coun- 
try, that  people  had  to 
be  brought  here  to  see 
for  themselves  before 
they  could  understand 
its  advantages,  that  Mr.  Horsburgh 
based  his  entire  publicity  campaign. 
He  went  after  and  secured  for  San 
Francisco  the  great  convention  of  the 
Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  fol- 
lowed by  that  of  the  Knights  Tem- 
plar and  then  by  that  of  the  Christian 
Endeavor.  For  the  last-named  gather- 
ing were  brought  23.000  delegates 
from'  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains. 
And  by  their  means  the  gospel  of 
California  was  spread  amazingly 
wide. 

At  another  time,  when  such  things 
were  sorely  needed,  he  had  his  field 
agents  organize  improvement  associa- 
tions througliout  California;  then  he 
got  all  the  clubs  in  the  Sacramento 
Valley  to  amalgamate  and  did  the  same 
with  those  in  the  San  Joaquin  Valley 
and  elsewhere.  By  a  publicity  cam- 
paign he  helped  the  prune  growers  sell 
the  90,000,000  pounds  surplus  of  their 
crop.  When  the  raisin  growers  got  into 
deep  water  he  did  the  same  for  them — 
the  result  was  "Raisin  Day,"  which 
saved  the  situation.  Sunset  Magazine, 
a  monument  to  his  ability  and  progres- 
siveness,  speaks  for  itself.  The  South- 
ern Pacific  building  at  the  Panama- 
Pacific  Exposition  was  the  evolution  of 
his  idea;  and  in  dozens  of  other  ways 
did  he  assist  in  the  great  world 
show. 

And  now,  believing  the  automobile 
to  be  the  coming  transportation  factor, 
he  has  entered  this  new  field — and  his 
future,  as  The  Chronicle  has  pointed 
out,  is  assured. 


25 


279 


CHARLES  F.   HUMPHREY 


SEVERAL  thousand  miles  separate 
California  from  the  Philippine  Is- 
lands, and  one  does  not  commonly 
associate  the  two  so  widely  dif- 
ferent regions  togetlier.  But  they  are 
linked  closely  in  the  mind  of  Charles 
Franklin  Humphrey  of  San  Francisco, 
for  not  only  is  he  a 
farmer  in  California, 
but  a  plantationist  in 
the  southern  islands 
also. 

All  of  Mr.  Hum- 
phrey's interests  today 
are  of  a  development 
nature.  He  has  ac- 
quired large  acreages 
of  land,  not  for  specu- 
lation purposes  but  to 
make  it  bear  and  pro- 
duce useful  commodi- 
ties. Until  recently  a 
practicing  lawyer,  he 
has  turned  away  from 
this  pliase  of  his  ca- 
reer and  all  of  his  time 
and  attention  is  now 
devoted  to  the  ad- 
vancement of  his  pri- 
vate projects. 

Mr.  Humphrey  was 
born  November  23, 
1872, at  Belleville,  Kan- 
sas, the  son  of  James 
C.  Humplirey  and  Anna  (Counter)  Hum- 
phrey. His  parents  removed  to  Kansas 
from  Canada,  wliere  the  elder  Humphrey 
published  several  newspapers.  Tliere- 
fore,  while  receiving  the  groundwork  of 
his  education  in  the  local  public  schools, 
Charles  F.  Humphrey  naturally  spent 
his  spare  time  working  in  his  father's 
newspaper  office. 

In  this  way  Mr.  Humphrey  gained  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  the  newspaper 
•game,"  from  both  the  mechanical  and 
the  editorial  standpoints.  When  he  en- 
tered the  University  of  Kansas  at  Law- 
rence in  1888,  he  continued  to  go  back 
to  the  newspaper  work  during  his  va- 
cation periods,  working  at  different 
times  on  the  Omaha  Bee,  the  Lincoln 
State  Journal  and  the  Kansas  City  Star. 

During  all  this  time,  however,  Mr. 
Humphrey  was  looking  forward  to  a 
career  in  the  law.  Accordingly,  fol- 
lowing his  graduation  from  the  Uni- 
versity of  Kansas  with  the  class  of  1892, 
he  entered  the  law  institution  of  the 
University,  taking  his  degree  in  1894. 
In  the  same  year  lie  was  admittel  to 
practice  in  Kansas,  but  instead  of  open- 
ing an  office  there  he  came  west  and 
spent  a  year  in  Portland,  Oregon,  part 
of  the  time  with  Bradstreet's  Mercan- 
tile Agency  and  the  remainder  in  the 
law  offices  of  Emmons  &  Emmons.  The 
year  1895  brought  him  to  San  Francisco. 


He  practiced  law  independently  until 
some  time  later,  when  he  became  a 
member  of  the  partnership  of  Humplirey 
&  Hubbard,  a  partnersliip  tliat  was  con- 
tinued until  1914,  when  it  was  dissolved. 
At  the  same  time  Mr.  Humphrey  ceased 
the  practice  of  law  entirely,  tlie  better 
to  manage  his  private 
interests. 

For  about  eight  years 
Mr.  Humplirey  lived 
witli  liis  family  in  Eu- 
rope, at  different  pe- 
riods residing  in  Ger- 
m  a  n  y,  France  and 
Spain,  that  his  chil- 
dren miglit  learn  tlie 
various  languages 
first-hand  and  other- 
wise have  the  best  op- 
portunities for  an  ex- 
tensive education.  On 
August  1,  1915,  he 
brouglit  his  family 
back  to  San  Francisco, 
wliere  he  will  hence- 
fortli  make  his  perma- 
nent residence,  spend- 
ing his  summers  at 
Belvedere. 

Mr.  Humphrey's  Phil- 
ippine interests  are  in 
the  Cagayan  Valley, 
Island  of  Luzon.  He 
owns  there  a  large  tract  of  land,  which 
he  has  developed  to  the  raising  of  tobac- 
co. He  has  taken  a  deep  interest  in  the 
furtherance  of  this  enterprise  and  in  ad- 
dition to  the  growing  of  tobacco  is  ex- 
perimenting with  sugar.  Although  he 
now  raises  only  enough  sugar  tor  the 
plantation's  own  consumption,  he  may 
increase  his  acreage  in  the  future  so  as 
to  enter  the  field  commercially. 

The  fact  that  Mr.  Humphrey  owns 
about  three  thousand  acres  of  excel- 
lent land  in  California  makes  of  him 
a  California  farmer  also.  His  products 
are  highly  diversified,  running  from 
fruit  to  cattle.  All  of  his  operations 
are  of  a  private  nature  and  he  has 
formed  no  corporations  to  exploit  his 
projects. 

Socially,  Mr.  Humphrey  is  a  member 
of  a  number  of  clubs,  among  them  the 
Royal  Polo  and  Golf  Club  of  Madrid, 
Spain,  the  Golf  Club  of  Montrieaux, 
Switzerland,  and  the  Bohemian,  Union 
League  and  Olympic  Clubs  of  San  Fran- 
cisco. He  also  is  a  Shriner  and  a 
Knight  Templar  in  the  Masonic  order. 
He  was  married  January  16,  1899,  to 
Elizabeth  Warren,  daughter  of  John 
Warren,  Esq.,  of  Cheshire,  England. 
He  is  the  father  of  two  sons,  James  and 
John  Humphrey,  tlie  former  of  whom 
is  now  at  Phillips  Exeter  Academy,  pre- 
paring for  Harvard  University. 


280 


CASSIUS  A.   HUTTON 


CONSIDERING  that  Cassius  A.  Hut- 
ton,  with  an  education  obtained 
by  the  sweat  of  his  brow,  was 
at  one  time  the  youngest  national 
bank  cashier  in  the  United  States — 
with  this  in  view  one  needs  no  ex- 
planation of  how  Mr.  Hutton  has  been 
able  to  build  up  from 
nothing  the  largest 
flour  jobbing  business 
west  of  the  Missis- 
sippi  River. 

Strenuous  and  per- 
sistent e  f£  o  r  t,  and 
close  application  to 
business — this  is  the 
secret  of  his  success, 
of  every  success.  He 
has  struggled  against 
competition  as  keen 
as  that  in  any  other 
commercial  pursuit. 
There  have  been  times 
when  the  future 
looked  dark,  when  it 
seemed  that  all  his 
efforts  were  in  vain. 
But  fortitude  and  per- 
sistence on  every  oc- 
casion carried  the 
day,  as  such  attri- 
butes nearly  always 
will. 

C.  A.  Hutton  was  born  September  4, 
1867,  on  a  farm  at  Algonac,  Michigan, 
the  son  of  William  H.  Hutton  and  M.  J. 
(Higgins)  Hutton.  When  twelve  years 
old  he  left  home  and  made  his  way 
through  the  public  schools  of  Attica, 
Michigan.  Following  his  graduation 
from  the  high  school  of  Lapeer,  Michi- 
gan, he  attended  business  college  at  Bay 
City. 

With  the  world  before  him,  and  the 
necessity  of  putting  his  knowledge  to 
account  in  his  mind,  Mr.  Hutton  en- 
tered a  railroad  office  and  pursued  the 
study  of  telegraphy.  At  the  age  of 
nineteen  he  started  as  a  telegrapher 
with  the  Chicago  &  Grand  Trunk  Rail- 
road Company.  The  year  18S8  brought 
him  to  Cheney,  Washington,  where  he 
took  a  position  in  the  station  office 
of   the   Northern   Pacific. 

Two  or  three  years  more  as  a  rail- 
roader and  Mr.  Hutton  began  look- 
ing about  him  for  an  opportunity  for 
more  rapid  advancement.  He  was 
offered  a  position  as  bookkeeper  in  the 
First  National  Bank  of  Cheney  and 
accepted  it.  As  he  labored  over  his 
figures  Mr.  Hutton  kept  his  eyes  open 
for  knowledge  of  the  business  in  which 
he  had  cast  his  lot.  This  desire  to 
learn  was  noticed  and  it  was  not  very 
long  until  he  was  given  the  position 
of  assistant  cashier.  He  was  still  in 
his  early  twenties  when  he  secured 
the    cashiership. 

After   several    years   in   banking,   Mr. 


Hutton  left  it  to  become  business 
manager  for  a  flour  milling  concern 
of  Cheney.  This  was  his  first  intro- 
duction to  the  business  in  which  he 
was  later  on  to  become  so  forceful  a 
figure.  In  1S9S  he  came  to  San  Fran- 
cisco to  represent  the  firm  as  sales 
agent,  and  a  short 
while  later  he  opened 
in  the  flour  jobbing 
business  for  himself 
in   a   small   way. 

When  he  started  ojit 
in  his  new  field  as  an 
independent  jobber, 
Mr.  Hutton  had  only 
about  $3,000  in  capital. 
He  steadily  enlarged 
his  business,  however, 
until  in  1908  he  or- 
ganized the  C.  A.  Hut- 
ton Flour  Company, 
with  offices  in  San 
Francisco  and  Los 
Angeles,  and  incorpo- 
rated. The  present 
volume  of  business 
runs  between  $1,500,- 
000  and  $2,000,000  a 
j'ear,  with  capital  and 
s  u  r  p  1  us  of  $300,000. 
The  corporation,  which 
Mr.  Hutton  owns  and 
controls  entirely  with  the  exception  of 
a  few  shares  issued  for  organization 
purposes,  confines  itself  to  domestic 
trade    in    California. 

In  a  civic  way  Mr.  Hutton  has  been 
active.  He  belongs  to  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce,  the  San  Francisco  Commer- 
cial Club,  and  the  Olympic  and  Trans- 
portation Clubs.  Fraternally,  he  is  a 
past  master  of  the  Masons  and  is  a 
member  of  Mission  Lodge  No.  169,  A. 
F.    &   A.    M. 

Mr.  Hutton  is  married  and  has  one 
son,  Harold  P.  Hutton,  who  is  asso- 
ciated with  him  in  business.  He  is  a 
lover  of  home  and  his  new  residence 
at  95  West  Clay  Park,  representing 
an  outlay  of  $50,000,  is  one  of  the  most 
attractive    in    the    city. 

California  is  essentially  a  land  of 
industrial  enterprises.  Time  was  when 
it  produced  little  of  the  real  neces- 
sities of  life.  Its  rich  deposits  of  gold 
distracted  the  settler  and  left  him  but 
little  interested  in  anything  but  the 
wresting  of  a  fortune  from  its  hills 
and  river  beds.  Today,  what  with  the 
directing  of  attention  to  the  "gold" 
that  can  be  made  to  grow  upon  its 
fertile  acres,  other  interests  claim  the 
populace,  and  California  has  become  a 
little  country  within  itself — self-sup- 
porting. 

One  of  the  most  important  of  these 
industries  of  today  is  the  flour  busi- 
ness, and  in  this  C.  A.  Hutton  has 
played,  and  is  destined  to  play  in  the 
future,    an    important    part. 


281 


COLONEL  D.   C.  JACKLING 


COLONEL.    Daniel    Cowan    Jackling, 
whose     business     career     is     well 
enough  known  not  to  need  further 
exploitation,  occupies  the  unusual 
position    in    respect    to    San    Francisco 
of  putting  something  into  the  city  with- 
out taking  anything  out  of  it. 

In  other  words  Colonel  Jackling,  as 
the  general  public  probably  does  not 
realize,  has  not  a  single  business  in- 
terest in  San  Francisco,  despite  the 
fact  that  he  maintains  headquarters 
here  in  order  that  his  various  mining 
and  other  properties  may  be  easily  ac- 
cessible to  him.  He  spends  annually 
great  sums  of  money  in  San  Francisco 
in  maintaining  his  offices  and  his  home, 
but  neither  asks  nor  receives  anything 
in  the  monetary  line  in  return. 

None  of  Colonel  Jackling's  interests 
is  exploited  to  the  general  public,  nor 
are  his  operations  carried  on  by  the 
public's  aid.     Yet  he  is  one  of  the  big- 


gest and  most  influential  business  men 
in  the  West. 

Among  others.  Colonel  Jackling  is 
interested  in  one  way  or  another  in  the 
following  corporations:  Utah  Copper 
Company,  Ray  Consolidated  Copper 
Company,  Alaska  Gold  Mines  Company, 
Bingham  &  Garfield  Railway,  Ray  & 
Gila  Valley  Railway,  Utah  Power  & 
Light  Company,  Nevada  Consolidated 
Copper  Company,  Nevada  Northern 
Railroad,  Chino  Copper  Company,  Butte 
&  Superior  Copper  Company,  Utah 
State  National  Bank,  McCornick  Com- 
pany of  Salt  Lake  City,  Garfield  (Utah) 
Banking  Company,  Salt  Lake  Security 
&  Trust  Company,  Utah  Hotel  Company 
and  Utah  Hotel  Operating  Company, 
Utah  Fire  Clay  Company,  Pacific-Alas- 
ka Navigation  Company,  First  National 
Bank  of  Denver,  Garden  City  Sugar  & 
Land  Company  of  Garden  City,  Kansas, 
United  Iron  Works  of  Oakland  and 
Kansas  City  Structural   Iron  Company. 


282 


1 


L.  T.  JACKS 


THE  idea  that  "Opportunity  knocks 
but  once  at  eacli  man's  door," 
and  the  attendant  idea  that  un- 
less full  advantage  is  taken  of 
the  chance  Opportunity  will  not  call 
again — this  is  by  no  means  of  universal 
application.  For  if  Opportunity  fails  to 
seek  him  out,  the  red- 
blooded  man  will  seek 
out  Opportunity.  He 
doesn't  wait  for  the 
knocking  on  the  door. 
Lile  T.  Jacks,  San 
Francisco  attorney  at 
law,  didn't  sit  around 
waiting  when  it  came 
time  for  him  to  get  out 
and  hustle  for  an  edu- 
cation and  for  a  career. 
He  hustled.  And  this 
involved,  at  one  period, 
working  in  a  hotel  for 
his  board  and,  at  an- 
other period,  digging 
ditches  and  keeping 
pace  with  men  many 
years  his  senior.  But 
he  gained  his  goal. 

Mr.  Jacks  was  born 
March  26,  1877,  on  a 
farm  at  Meadow  Valley 
near  Quincy,  Plumas 
County,  California. 
His  father  is  Richard 
Jacks,  farmer  and 
miner,  and  his  mother  Florence  Fremont 
(Bell)  Jacks.  He  attended  tiie  public 
schools  of  the  neighborhood,  and  after 
finishing  the  grammar  grades  worked 
for  some  time  as  a  common  laborer  for 
a  mining  company.  The  next  year  he 
entered  the  Quincy  High  School,  work- 
ing in  the  evenings  at  the  Plumas 
House,  where  he  boarded.  He  was  grad- 
uated in  1900. 

Soon  after  this  Mr.  Jacks  entered  the 
mining  field  by  locating  what  was 
known  as  the  Smith's  Flat  placer  claim. 
He  purchased  the  necessary  equipment, 
rented  water  and  worked  the  claim  for 
three  seasons,  making  enough  money 
to  come  to  San  Francisco  in  January, 
1901.  He  took  a  course  in  the  Gal- 
lagher-Marsh Business  College,  and 
after  finishing  entered  the  evening  law 
school  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian 
Association,  where  he  received  his  A.  B. 
degree.  The  course  covered  a  period,  in 
all,  of  four  years.  He  also  took  a  post- 
graduate course  at  St.  Ignatius  Uni- 
versity. 

Meanwhile,  immediately  after  taking 
up  the  study  of  law  Mr.  Jacks  worked 
for  a  month  as  stenographer  in  a  mer- 
, cantile  firm,  holding  down  this  position 
in  the  day  time  and  attending  school  in 
the  evenings.  In  1902  Mr.  Jacks  was 
placed  in  charge  of  the  schools'  supply 
department  under  the  direction  of  the 
Board  of  Education,  a  position  he  re- 
tained until  about  the  time  he  com- 
pleted his  law  course. 


In  1906  he  became  a  deputy  under 
County  Clerk  Harry  I.  Mulcrevy.  This 
position  he  resigned  in  1908,  took  his 
bar  examinations  and  was  admitted  to 
practice  November  IS,  1908,  before  the 
District  Court  of  Appeals  of  California, 
Since  then  he  has  been  admitted  by  the 
United  States  District 
and  Circuit  Courts. 
For  about  a  year  after 
he  first  was  admitted 
he  was  a  clerk  in  the 
law  offices  of  McNair 
&  Stoker.  Then  he 
started  practicing;  in- 
dependently and  has 
done  so  ever  since, 
with  the  exception  of 
about  a  year  wlien  he 
maintained  his  office 
in  connection  with 
tliat  of  Frank  S.  Brit- 
tain,  now  attorney  for 
the  Panama-Pacific 
Exposition. 

Confining  himself  al- 
most exclusively  to  the 
practice    of    civil    law, 
Mr.   Jacks  has  special- 
ized in  probate  matters 
and     has     handled     a 
number     of     important 
estates      in      court. 
Among    these    was    the 
$250,000     estate     of 
Mrs.    Ruth    Hannah    Muzzy,    which    has 
been     settled    and    distributed     to     the 
heirs. 

Mr.  Jacks  represented  Mrs.  Lovell 
White,  chairman  of  the  .Outdoor  Art 
League  Club,  an  auxiliary  of  the  Cali- 
fornia Women's  Club,  in  the  fight  be- 
fore the  1914  State  Legislature  on  be- 
half of  the  cemetery  condemnation  bill. 
This  was  a  measure  to  amend  the  code 
of  civil  procedure  relative  to  eminent 
domain,  so  that  the  City  of  San  Fran- 
cisco might  take  over  old  cemetery 
lands  and  make  memorial  parks  out  of 
them.  Mr.  Jacks  framed  the  bill,  which 
was  the  only  bill  of  a  similar  nature 
that  was  passed  by  the  Senate.  The 
whole  bill  is  to  be  taken  up  again  be- 
fore the  next  legislature. 

In  addition  to  his  probate  and  other 
work  Mr.  Jacks  is  attorney  for  several 
corporations  and  business  concerns, 
the  Home  Manufacturing  Company; 
the  Imperial  Company,  manufacturers 
of  waterproofing;  Fish  Brothers,  real 
estate  dealers,  and  several  others. 

Socially,  Mr.  Jacks  is  a  member  of  the 
Native  Sons  of  the  Golden  West,  the 
Deutscher  Club,  Woodmen  of  the  World, 
and  other  private  clubs.  He  was  mar- 
ried in  San  Anselmo.  September  21,  191.3. 
to  Miss  Ethel  Kluver,  daughter  of  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Henry  Kluver  of  San  Fran- 
cisco, and  granddaughter  of  the  late 
Henry  Dobbel,  wealthy  California  pio- 
neer and  member  of  the  Vigilance  Com- 
mittee of  San  Francisco's  early  days. 


283 


HENRY  T.  JONES 


WHEN  business  philosophers  have 
set  forth,  as  the  iriiit  of  long  ex- 
perience, what  thing's  are  nec- 
essary to  bring  about  a  man's 
rise  in  the  world,  the  whole  weighty 
argument  may  be  boiled  down  and  re- 
solved into  three  words — ability,  effort 
and  perseverance. 

Given  those  a  t  t  r  i  - 
butes,  a  man  may  gain 
all  others  with  but 
little  extra  trouble. 
But  it  is  essential  that 
he  have  the  three.  The 
man  who  will  not  or 
cannot  assimilate 
learning,  the  man  who 
yawns  and  watches  the 
office  clock,  the  man 
who  flits  from  one 
position  to  the  other 
in  the  hope  of  "landing 
something  good"  with- 
out vi^orking  up  to  it — 
such  men  to  failure 
are    foredoomed. 

Henry  T.  Jones  is 
today  general  super- 
intendent  of  the 
United  Railroads  of 
San  Francisco  because 
he  has,  and  has  had 
all  along,  ability,  per- 
severance and  pluck. 
In  order  to  learn  all  about  the  busi- 
ness he  had  chosen  for  a  career 
he  began  at  the  very  bottom.  He 
worked,  he  was  dependable,  and  it 
was  not  long  until  his  worth  was  rec- 
ognized. 

Mr.  Jones  is  a  native  of  Bristol, 
England.  He  was  born  January  22, 
1866,  the  son  of  Daniel  Jones,  a  Colonel 
in  the  British  Army,  and  Emma  (Proc- 
tor) Jones.  He  attended  Rugby  schools 
and  in  1881  entered  the  Royal  Navy  and 
was  assigned  to  H.  M.  S.  Britannica. 
Two  years  later  his  father  died  and  he 
left  the  navy. 

Almost  at  once  Mr.  Jones  entered  the 
employment  of  Sir  Clifton  Robinson, 
who  at  that  time  was  constructing  the 
Higate  Hill  cable  railroad  in  London, 
after  having  been  manager  of  the 
Bristol  Tramways.  This  was  the  first 
road  of  its  kind  in  Europe  and  was 
designed  after  the  cable  railroads  of 
San  Francisco,  which  were  the  first  in 
the  world.  In  1SS4  Mr.  Jones,  in  his 
capacity  of  conductor,  operated  the  first 
car  over  the  Higate  Hill  line,  with  the 
Lord  Mayor  of  London  and  other  digni- 
taries as  guests. 

After  a  few  months  as  a  "platform 
man"  Mr.  Jones  was  given  a  clerkship 
in  the  company's  offices,  remaining  in 
this  position  until  1887.  Thereafter,  for 
a  time,  he  traveled  abroad.  Returning 
to  London  from  Mexico,  he  learned  that 
Sir  Clifton  Robinson  had  come  to  the 
Ignited  States,  to  Los  Angeles,  Cali- 
fornia, where  he  was  installing  a  line 
for    the    Los    Angeles    Cable    Railroad. 


Desiring  to  stay  on  with  his  first  em- 
ployer, Mr.  Jones  returned  to  America 
and  Sir  Clifton  made  him  assistant 
superintendent  of  the  road. 

In  1890  Mr.  Jones  did  something  that 
few  men  do.  He  went  back  to  get  more 
experience  in  the  actual  handling  of 
street  cars.  In  need 
of  fresh  air,  and  in 
the  belief  that  with 
a  firmer  groundwork 
in  the  street  railway 
business  he  would  be 
better  enabled  to  main- 
tain an  executive  posi- 
tion when  he  came  to 
it,  he  came  to  San 
Francisco  and  became 
a  conductor  on  the  old 
Market  Street  Cable 
Railway.  Since  that 
time  he  has  remained 
in  San  Francisco  and 
has  risen  steadily 
through  the  ranks  to 
the  position  he  now 
holds. 

Successively  he  be- 
came  inspector,  car 
dispatcher  and  time- 
table expert,  and  in 
1902  when  the  United 
Railroads  was  organ- 
i  z  e  d  was  appointed 
superintendent  of  employment.  Two 
years  later  he  was  made  division  super- 
intendent and  this  position  he  held  for 
nine  years.  He  was  appointed  acting 
general  superintendent  in  July,  1913,  to 
succeed  the  late  Elwood  Hibbs.  Mean- 
while, in  addition  to  the  regular  duties 
of  his  office,  he  also  continued  as  the 
company's  time-table  expert  as  well  as 
chief  of  the  employment  bureau.  On 
January  1,  191.5,  he  was  formally  made 
general    superintendent. 

Mr.  Jones  personally  has  employed  all 
the  men  of  the  rank  and  file  that  the 
United  Railroads  has  added  to  its  pay- 
roll since  the  company's  formation  in 
1902.  He  is  a  born  executive  and 
withal  one  of  the  most  popular  men  in 
the  service  of  the  United  Railroads. 
Today  he  is  at  the  head  of  actual  oper- 
ation of  a  road  that  has  278  miles  of 
single  track,  electric  and  cable.  Includ- 
ing 1900  platform  men,  he  has  under  his 
direction  about  2500  employes  of  all 
classes.  His  has  been  a  long  and  faith- 
ful service.  And  the  days  that  he  has 
worked  20  hours  out  of  the  24,  notably 
following  the  fire  of  1906  and  during  the 
subsequent  strike,  have  borne  their 
fruit. 

Mr.  Jones  is  a  member  of  the  Trans- 
portation Club  and  the  Indoor  Yacht 
Club.  He  was  married  in  1902  in  San 
Francisco  to  Miss  Blanche  A.  Le  Juene, 
daughter  of  A.  Le  Juene,  the  noted 
Belgian  sculptor.  He  has  two  sons, 
George  F.  Jones,  10,  and  Burgess 
William  Jones,  6. 


■284 


FRANCIS   V.  KEESLING 


ONE  thinking  of  an  exponent  of 
the  law  naturally  associates  with 
the  profession  the  idea  of  a  man 
whose  interest  lies  wholly  in  the 
interpretation  of  Blaclistone.  The  im- 
pression of  versatility  is  not  present, 
and  it  is  somewhat  surprising  to  find 
a  lawyer  taking  part 
in  anything  so  "frivo- 
lous" as,  for  instance, 
baseball,  or  in  some- 
thing so  practical  as 
military    affairs. 

Francis  V.  Keesling, 
in  his  career  as  a  law- 
yer, has  found  pleas- 
ure in  both  these  side 
pursuits.  In  his  stu- 
dent days  at  Stanford 
University  he  was 
baseball  manager. 
During  the  San  Fran- 
cisco fire  of  1906  he 
was  major  of  a  Na- 
tional Guard  battalion 
that  won  great  praise 
for  its  work  in  pre- 
serving order  and  in 
saving  life  and  prop- 
erty. The  law,  how- 
ever, is  his  forte  and 
in  this  and  in  semi- 
public  life  he  has  ren- 
dered such  service  that 
his  friends,  at  the 
State  primary  election  in  1914,  ran  him 
for  the  Republican  nomination  for 
Governor  and  gave  him  a  flattering 
vote  of  65,028. 

Born  in  San  Jose  February  17,  1877, 
Mr.  Keesling  was  educated  in  the  pub- 
lic schools  of  the  Garden  City,  being 
graduated  from  the  San  Jose  High 
School  in  1894.  He  was  a  member  of 
the  Gamma  Eta  Kappa  fraternity  and 
represented  the  High  School  in  a  de- 
bate against  the  State  Normal  School. 
Entering  Stanford  University  he  se- 
cured the  degree  of  A.  B.  in  1898.  As 
he  went  along  his  personal  popularity 
increased.  He  was  first  president  of 
his  class;  was  editor-in-chief  of  the 
Stanford  Quad  in  1898,  the  year  he  was 
baseball  manager;  and  held  member- 
ship in  the  Sigma  Nu  fraternity,  the 
Phi  Delta  Phi,  Skull  and  Snakes  Honor 
Society   and    the    Press    Club. 

Following  his  graduation  Mr.  Kees- 
ling continued  his  study  of  the  law  in 
the  office  of  "William  M.  Pierson  and 
Crothers  &  Crothers.  On  December  31, 
1898,  he  formally  was  admitted  to  the 
bar. 

Prior  to  this,  in  1898,  he  spent  three 
months  organizing  a  compaign  to  se- 
cure for  Stanford  University  a  con- 
stitutional amendment  correcting  vital 
defects  in  the  foundation  trusts  and 
grants  and  making  provision  for  ex- 
emption from  taxation  by  the  I^egis- 
lature.  In  1899  he  obtained  from  the 
Legislature  a  submission  to  the  people 
of  the  desired  amendment.  He  kept 
at    work    in    the    educational    campaign 


until  late  in  the  summer  of  1900,  when 
he  toured  the  State.  The  final  result 
was  the  adoption  of  the  amendment  by 
the  voters  and  the  giving  of  untold 
benefits  to  the  University. 

Mr.  Keesling  enlisted  as  a  private  in 
the  National  Guard  of  California,  Bat- 
tery D,  First  Artillery, 
in  July,  1901.  He  was 
elected  a  lieutenant  in 
March,  1902,  and  in  De- 
cember of  the  same 
year  was  made  a  cap- 
tain in  command  of  the 
battery.  He  was  spe- 
cially detailed  as  a 
representative  of  the 
State  to  the  joint  ma- 
neuvers of  the  United 
States  Army  and  the 
National  Guard  at 
West  Point  in  1903, 
and  subsequently  was 
elected  associate  mem- 
ber  of  the  Military 
Service    Institution. 

The  fire  of  1906 
brought  a  test  of  his 
efficiency.  He  was 
elected  major  of  the 
First  Battalion,  Coast 
Artillery,  w^hose  vv^ork 
"wSiS  unequalled  by  any 
Army  or  National 
Guard  force  on  similar 
duty.  In  the  California  archives  and 
elsewhere  are  official  reports  setting 
forth  this  fact.  The  late  E.  H.  Harri- 
man,  the  railroad  king,  paid  a  well- 
deserved  tribute  when  he  said: 

"These  men  left  their  private  affairs 
and  their  homes  at  a  critical  time, 
many  laboring  under  the  distress  of 
personal  loss,  and  gave  their  service 
to  their  State  in  her  hour  of  need. 
Praise,  and  only  praise,  is  due  the  Na- 
tional Guard  of  California  for  its  serv- 
ice   in    this   crisis." 

Similar  commendation  was  set  forth 
by  Governor  Pardee  in  his  message  to 
the  extra  session  of  the  Legislature 
June  2,  1906. 

Mr.  Keesling  has  always  been  a 
stanch  Republican  and  at  present  is 
chairman  of  the  Republican  State  Cen- 
tral Committee.  In  1907  he  was  elected 
regent  of  the  Sigma  Nu  fraternity  at 
Chicago.  Socially  he  is  an  active  club 
member;  fraternally,  he  is  a  thirty- 
third  degree  Mason  and  at  present  is 
senior  grand  warden  of  the  Grand 
Lodge,  F.  &  A.  M.,  of  California. 

Limiting  his  professional  practice  to 
civil  law,  Mr.  Keesling  has  taken  part 
in  many  important  legal  matters.  Fol- 
lowing the  passage  of  the  Dick  Bill 
he  practically  rewrote  the  State  law  to 
conform  to  it.  He  heads  the  Stanford 
Law   Association   as   its    president. 

Mr.  Keesling  was  married  in  1903  to 
Haidee  Grau  of  Sacramento  and  is  the 
father  of  four  children.  The  family 
home  is  in  Presidio  Terrace,  San  Fran- 
cisco. 


285 


E.   J.  KINGSBURY 


THE  world  owes  much  to  the  in- 
ventor— how  much,  one  can  read- 
ily conceive  by  gazing  about  at 
the  innumerable  "necessities  of 
life"  which  our  forfathers  knew  nothing 
of  and  were  forced  to  do  without.  In- 
ventions liave  made  earth  more  livable; 
they  have  lifted  man 
from  the  gloom  of  ig- 
norance and  made  him 
master  of  all  he  sur- 
veys. 

Primarily,  E.  J. 
Kingsbury  is  a  m  e  - 
chanical  and  electrical 
engineer.  But  he  also 
is  an  inventor  and  to- 
day he  has  to  his  credit 
at  least  three  really 
big  accomplishments 
along  this  line,  with 
innumerable  others  of 
lesser  importance. 

His  latest  coup  is  the 
electrograph.  This  is 
an  electrical  advertis- 
ing device  w^hereby, 
through  patented 
mechanisms  known  as 
the  "unit  control,"  let- 
ters, characters  and  il- 
lustrations may  be 
shown  extempora- 
neously  either  by  night 
or  by  day.  The  "unit  control"  allows 
any  number  of  different  currents  of 
electricity  to  pass  over  the  same 
wire  at  the  same  time  without  inter- 
ference, thus  making  it  possible  for  a 
single  contact  and  a  single  wire  to  con- 
trol an  unlimited  number  of  points.  By 
means  of  a  standard  typewriter  the 
different  characters  may  be  written  on 
one  or  more  signs  with  only  one  key 
for  each  letter  or  character  and  one 
wire  per  character.  The  advantages  of 
the  electrograph  over  any  other  elec- 
trical advertising  device  are  extempo- 
raneous control  as  compared  with  pre- 
viously prepared  "copy,"  low  cost  of 
construction  and  operation,  and  the  fact 
that  it  is  the  only  device  whereby  pic- 
tures, cartoons  and  colored  illustrations 
may  be  flashed  on  an  electrical  sign  at 
will,  different  pictures  appearing  on 
the  same  space  at  different  periods. 

Mr.  Kingsbury  invented  the  electro- 
graph while  he  was  in  Juneau,  Alaska, 
and  has  been  devoting  his  time  to  its 
development  since  1914.  He  incorpo- 
rated in  Alaska  under  the  firm  name  of 
the  Kingsbury  Electrograph  Company, 
of  which  he  is  president  and  manager. 
The  initial  financing  of  the  concern  was 
completed  in  Alaska  and  the  first  unit 
of  the  electrograph  is  now  being  built. 
Since  early  in  1915  the  general  oflfices 
have  been  in  the  Merchants  National 
Bank   Building,   San   Francisco. 


E.  J.  Kingsbury  is  a  native  of  Minne- 
sota. He  was  born  July  12,  1878,  at 
Le  Roy,  the  son  of  Dr.  E.  J.  Kingsbury, 
a  physician  and  surgeon,  and  M.  H. 
(Hard)  Kingsbury.  He  attended  the 
public  schools  of  Cannonsburg,  Pa.,  was 
graduated  from  the  high  school  of 
Knapp,  Wis.,  and  later 
from  McAllister  Col- 
lege at  St.  Paul.  He 
took  post-graduate 
work  in  mechanical 
and  electrical  engi- 
neering at  Armour  In- 
stitute, Chicago,  and 
was  awarded  the  de- 
grees of  M.  E.  and 
E.  E.  in  1899. 

His  first  work  was 
witli  the  Atwood  Lum- 
ber Company  in  Min- 
nesota, where  he  in- 
stalled power  stations 
for  something  more 
than  two  years.  Then 
for  four  years  he  in- 
stalled and  operated 
power  stations  for  the 
Great  Northern  R  a  i  1- 
way.  At  the  end  of  this 
period  he  became  su- 
perintendent of  power 
and  light  for  the  White 
Pass  &  lukon  Railway 
at  Skagway,  Alaska,  and  after  three 
years  went  with  the  Alaska-Treadwell 
Gold  Mines  Co.  at  Treadwell,  with 
whom  he  remained  four  years  in  the 
installation  and  operation  of  hydro- 
electric machinery. 

Among  Mr.  Kingsbury's  other  inven- 
tions is  an  electrical  safet5'  device  for 
railroad  bridges  and  culverts.  In  case 
of  fire,  washout,  strain  or  stress  to  the 
bridge,  the  device  throws  the  sema- 
phore signals  and  automatically  calls 
up  the  train  dispatcher  and  gives  him 
the  number  and  name  of  the  bridge. 
All  this  is  accomplished  on  existing 
telegraph  wires  and  in  operation  it 
has   proved   eminently   successful. 

Mr.  Kingsbury  also  invented  and  per- 
fected a  mechanical  refrigeration  sys- 
tem through  the  use  of  electro-chemis- 
try. This  is  to  be  used  in  homes  in 
small  units,  the  current  required  being 
less  than  that  consumed  by  a  60-watt 
Mazda  lamp.  Another  of  his  inventions 
is  an  automatic  cut-off  for  steam  en- 
gine governors,  which  will,  for  instance, 
make  impossible  the  running  away  of 
an  engine.  Mr.  Kingsbury  is  also  sec- 
retary-treasurer of  the  Quertier  Ma- 
chine Co.  of  San  Francisco. 

In  1900,  at  Willow  River,  Minn..  Mr. 
Kingsbury  married  Miss  Eva  Thomp- 
son, and  is  the  father  of  one  son,  Orval 
H.  Kingsbury,  who  is  now  attending 
Lowell  High  School. 


286 


EMILIO    LASTRETO 


IF  it  were  necessary  to  describe,  in 
one  word,  the  character  of  Emilio 
Lastreto,  that  word  would  be  "ver- 
satile." For  not  only  is  Emilio  La- 
streto a  successful  practicing  attorney 
but  he  also  is  a  linguist,  a  notable  in- 
terpreter of  Shakespearean  roles,  a 
writer,  and  a  fencer  of 
national  reputation. 
And,  aside  from  all 
tins,  he  is  active  in  a 
civic  way  as  well  as 
socially  and  f  r  a  t  e  r- 
nally. 

Mr.  Lastreto  is  a  na- 
tive of  San  Francisco. 
He  was  born  February 
25,  1S69,  the  son  of 
Luigi  Felix  Lastreto, 
who  for  half  a  century 
carried  on  here  a  com- 
mission business  with 
Central  and  Soutli 
American  countries. 
His  mother  was  Char- 
lotte (Parrain)  Lastre- 
to. After  passing 
through  tlie  Wasliing- 
.  t  o  n  Grammar  School, 
M  r  .  Lastreto  entered 
the  Boys'  High  School, 
from  which  he  was 
graduated  in  1885. 

For  two  years  fol- 
lowing this  he  was  en- 
rolled at  Hastings  Col- 
lege of  the  Law  in  San 
Francisco.  Because  he 
was  below  the  age  of  21,  however,  the 
institution  could  not  graduate  him. 
Not  to  be  forestalled  by  a  mere  matter 
of  age,  Mr.  Lastreto  and  several  other 
youtlis  in  the  same  situation  clubbed 
together  and  completed  their  studies  in- 
dependently. Then,  on  May  5,  1890,  Mr. 
Lastreto  was  admitted  to  tlie  bar  before 
the  Supreme  Court  of  California  at 
Sacramento.  Several  years  later,  on 
December  23,  1898,  he  was  admitted  to 
practice  before  the  United  States  Cir- 
cuit and  District  Courts  also. 

Immediately  after  securing  his  cre- 
dentials Mr.  Lastreto  began  practicing 
alone  in  San  Francisco,  and  has  con- 
tinued so  ever  since.  His  law  w^ork  is 
of  a  general  civil  nature.  He  speaks 
French,  Spanish  and  Italian  fluently,  in 
addition  to  English,  and  his  clientele  is 
largely  composed  of  members  of  those 
three  races  resident  in  this  section  of 
the  State.  Mr.  Lastreto  has  assisted  in 
several  probate  cases  of  importance  and 
has  also  practiced  some  in  mining  law, 
although  his  interests  in  mining  are 
largely  those  of  an  investor.  He  has 
also  been  admitted  to  practice  before 
the  United  States  Land  Offices. 

As  a  Shakespearean  actor  Mr.  Las- 
treto is  widely  and  favorably  known. 
On  the  lop  story  of  his  home  on  Rus- 
sian Hill  he  has  fitted  up  a  small,  but  no 
less  complete,  private  theater.  It  has 
everything  in  scenery,  lighting  effects 
and  properties  that  the  regular  stage 
has.  Four  years  ago  he  organized  the 
Lastreto  Shakespearean  Players,  whose 
productions,  presented  before  private 
audiences  only,  have  elicited  much 
praise.     Speaking  of  Mr.  Lastreto's  por- 


trayal of  lago  in  "Othello,"  a  reviewer 
said: 

"Brobdignagian  in  tlie  superb  manner 
in  which  he  pictured  lago  on  his  Lilliput 
stage,  Lastreto  won  tlie  encomiums  of 
his  audience  by  his  enthusiasm  and 
disclosed  why,  for  the  mere  love 
of  acting,  he  has  been 
willing  single-handed 
to  equip  his  playhouse 
and  bear  the  financial 
burden  of  the  series  of 
Shakespearean  shows 
that  liave  made  it  lo- 
cally famous." 

For  t  w  e  n  t  y-f  i  v  e 
years  Mr.  Lastreto  has 
been  playing  Siiake- 
speare.  Though  always 
as  an  amateur,  he  has 
appeared  o  n  several 
occasions  witli  famous 
professionals.  In  18'.».3 
he  appeared  with 
Sarah  Bernhardt  in 
"Cleopatra,"  "La  Tos- 
ca"  and  "Jeanne  d'Arc" 
at  the  old  Grand  Opera 
House.  In  his  private 
theater  he  has  played 
Shylock  in  "The  Mer- 
chant  of  Venic  e," 
Othello  and  lago  in 
"Othello,"  Cardinal 
W  o 1 s  e  y  in  "K  i  n  g 
Henry  VIII,"  and  the 
title  roles  in  "Hamlet," 
Richard  III,"  "Mac- 
beth," and  "King  Lear." 

For  years  Mr.  Lastreto  has  been  an 
exponent  of  fencing,  ana  has  done  more 
different  kinds  of  fencing  than  any 
other  amateur  in  the  West.  His  efforts 
have  won  for  him  a  number  of  cham- 
pionship medals.  In  the  early  nineties 
he  gave  a  series  of  exhibitions  at  tne 
Olympic  Club  with  Professor  Tronchet, 
then  champion  of  America,  and  for  years 
he  has  been  the  club's  fencing  leader. 
He  was  chairman  of  the  department  of 
athletics  for  fencing  of  the  Panama- 
Pacific  International  Exposition  and 
was  judge  and  director  of  the  exposition 
tournament,  held  at  the  Olympic  Club 
in  May,  1915.  On  different  occasions  he 
has  vi^ritten  articles  on  fencing  for  the 
magazines;  his  writings  also  include 
dramas,  several  of  which  were  produced 
here  before  the  1906  fire,  at  the  old 
Columbia  Theater 

Ever  since  it  was  organized,  Mr. 
Lastreto  has  been  chairman  of  the 
Orphan's  Board  of  the  Independent  Or- 
der of  Red  Men.  He  is  past-sachem  of 
Yosemite  Tribe  No.  103,  I.  O.  R.  M., 
past-president  of  Alcalde  Parlor  No. 
154,  N.  S.  G.  W.,  vice-president  of  the 
North  Beach  Promotion  Association, 
and  a  member  of  the  Players'  Club  of 
San  Francisco. 

He  viras  married  June  6,  1906,  in  San 
Francisco  to  Goldie  Cuffleld  and  has 
three  children,  Eva,  Emilio  and  Carlo 
Lastreto. 

Mr.  Lastrato's  offices  are  in  the 
Chronicle  building  where  he  has 
been  established  since  1892.  He  is 
the  Chronicle  building's  oldest  ten- 
ant. 


287 


JAY   MONROE   LATIMER 


THE    largest    verdict    for    personal 
damages  ever  awarded  by  a  jury 
in  a  California  court  was  won  by 
Jay    Monroe    Latimer,    San    Fran- 
cisco  attorney    at    law,    on    belialf    of   a 
client. 

Such  a  record,  in  itself,  is  sufficient  to 
establisli  the  reputa- 
t  i  o  n  of  a  practicing 
lawyer.  But  in  the  case 
of  Mr.  Latimer  it  mere- 
ly strengthened  a  rep- 
utation already  gained 
by  reason  of  a  long 
continued  and  consist- 
ent success  in  tlie  field 
of  his  chosen  profes- 
sion. 

The  suit  in  question 
was  that  of  Elsa  U. 
Arnold  et  al.  vs.  the 
San  Francisco-Oakland 
Terminal  Railways. 
The  plaintiff,  widow  of 
Joseph  Charles  Arnold, 
a  civil  engineer  killed 
when  a  train  of  the 
defendant  corporation 
Struck  the  automo- 
bile in  whicli  he  was 
riding,  asked  dam- 
ages  of  $75,000  for 
her    husband's    death. 

The  trial,  held  in  the  Superior  Court 
of  Contra  Costa  County  at  Martinez  in 
February,  1914,  lasted  eight  days  and  a 
night.  Attorney  Latimer,  by  stipula- 
tion, spoke  less  than  an  hour  in  liis 
address  to  the  jury,  but  in  this  hour 
he  displayed  such  power  of  oratory — as 
described  in  the  newspapers  of  the  next 
day — and  drew  such  colorful  word  pic- 
tures of  the  widow  and  three  children 
suddenly  bereft  of  husband  and  father, 
as  to  elicit  tears  from  jury  and  court- 
room spectators  alike.  After  being  out 
only  about  an  hour  the  jury  returned  a 
verdict  in  which  Mrs.  Arnold  was 
awarded  damages  of  $30,000 — a  record 
figure. 

To  glance  over  Mr.  Latimer's  career 
from  the  ))Cginning,  lie  was  born  August 
12,  1875,  on  a  farm  near  Le  Roy,  Medina 
County,  Ohio.  His  father  was  Julius  A. 
Latimer,  a  retired  lawyer,  and  his 
mother  Mary  Elizabeth  (Leonard)  Lati- 
mer. Mr.  Latimer  attended  the  public 
schools  of  Le  Roy,  meanwhile  doing  his 
allotted  work  at  home  in  the  mornings 
and  evenings,  and  in  the  summer  season 
taking  his  place  in  the  fields  with  the 
men. 

"When  he  was  eighteen  years  old  he 
was  graduated  from  the  Le  Roy  High 
School.  Thereafter  he  entered  upon  a 
combined  teacher's  and  ousiness  course 
at  Wayne  Normal  College  at  Wayne, 
Nebraska,  but  left  before  graduation  to 
read  law  in  the  office  of  his  brother, 
George  A.  Latimer,  at  Norfolk,  Nebraska. 


He  remained  with  his  brother  until 
1896,  when  he  removed  to  Butte,  Montana. 
In  1899  Mr.  Latimer  entered  the  law 
department  of  the  University  of  Wash- 
ington at  Seattle.  The  next  year,  how- 
ever, he  heard  the  call  of  the  North, 
with  the  result  that  he  gathered  to- 
gether his  belongings 
and  went  to  Nome, 
Alaska.  He  began 
there  the  practice  of 
law,  continuing  for 
three  years,  with  the 
exception  of  one  win- 
ter when  he  returned 
to  Seattle  and  pursued 
his  studies  at  the  law 
school.  He  built  up  a 
clientele  rapidly,  doing 
a  general  civil  law 
business  and  specializ- 
ing in  mining  law.  In 
fact  he  tried  some  of 
the  most  important 
mining  cases  that  came 
up  in  Alaska  w^hile  he 
made  his  residence 
there.  In  1902  he  was 
defeated  in  the  contest 
for  appointment  a  s 
United  States  Attorney 
at  Nome  under  Presi- 
d  e  n  t  Roosevelt.  Mr. 
Latimer  spent  eight  or  ten  months  in 
1903  in  Juneau,  then  removed  to  Fair- 
banks, Alaska,  and  practiced  his  pro- 
fession there  until  1908,  when  he  came 
to  San  Francisco.  He  has  remained 
here    ever   since. 

While  living  at  Fairbanks,  Mr.  Lati- 
mer sought  relaxation  in  authorship. 
The  result  was  an  ably  written  and 
profusely  illustrated  article  entitled, 
"Our  Riches  of  the  Far  North,"  pub- 
lished in  Metropolitan  Magazine  of 
November,   1907. 

At  present  Mr.  Latimer,  in  view  of 
the  volume  of  such  business  that  he  is 
asked  to  handle,  might  be  said  to 
specialize  in  actions  for  damages.  He 
also  does  considerable  work  of  a  pro- 
bate nature,  and  has  settled  a  number 
of  goodly  estates  in  the  past  few 
years. 

Although  he  is  a  strong  Republican, 
and  is  ever  actively  interested  In  fur- 
thering the  party's  cause,  Mr.  Latimer 
could  not  be  termed  a  politician.  At 
the  instance  of  his  friends  he  Ijecame  a 
candidate,  in  1914,  for  the  short 
term  as  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  California,  to  fill  the  po- 
sition made  vacant  by  the  death  of 
Chief  Justice  Beatty.  The  office 
was  won,  however,  by  Matt  I.  Sul- 
livan. 

Mr.  Latimer  confines  his  fraternal  ac- 
tivities to  membership  in  American 
Lodge  No.  5,  Knights  of  Pythias,  of 
San   Francisco. 


283 


JEREMIAH  LYNCH 


HE  has  swum  in  Alaska's  river 
Yukon,  in  the  Nile  of  mystic 
Egypt — and  has  written  gripping 
books  about  each.  In  the  capi- 
tals of  the  Old  World  and  the  new  he 
is  equally  at  home.  He  i.s  as  well  known 
in  Cairo,  to  use  the  words  of  the  famous 
Lord  Kitchener,  as  in 
his  own  San  Francisco. 
And  between  the  two 
world  extremes  one 
finds  his  footsteps 
everywhere. 

It  is  condensation, 
not  elaboration,  that  is 
difficult  in  telling  the 
story  of  Jeremiah 
Lynch,  author,  club- 
man and  world  trav- 
eler. His  has  been  a 
well-rounded  life,  tinc- 
tured with  just  enough 
hardship  to  make  the 
pleasant  side  the  more 
appreciated. 

Jeremiah  Lynch,  a 
native  of  Massachu- 
setts, came  to  Califor- 
nia with  his  parents  in 
1858,  when  he  was 
quite  a  child.  The 
family  settled  in  Shas- 
ta, then  a  flourishing 
mining  to^vn,  where 
Mr.  Lynch's  boyhood 
was  spent.  The  boy  at- 
tended  the  common 
schools  of  Shasta,  then 
for  one  year  was  enrolled  in  the  San 
Francisco  High  School — but  his  formal 
education  was  discontinued  when  he 
was  sixteen  years  old.  In  the  world's 
school  he  has  gained  all  the  rest  of  that 
learning  which  has  enabled  him  to  be- 
come the  recognized  authority  in  liter- 
ature and  other  subjects  that  he  is 
today. 

In  1S70  Mr.  Lynch  came  to  San  Fran- 
cisco to  remain.  In  1876,  during  the 
bonanza  excitement  when  fortunes 
were  being  made  on  every  side,  he  be- 
came a  member  of  the  San  Francisco 
Stock  Exchange,  with  which  he  re- 
mained affiliated  for  twenty  years.  He 
was  elected  president  of  the  Exchange 
in  18S8  and  at  the  end  of  his  first  term 
was  re-elected  by  unanimous  vote. 

Although  he  always  had  taken  a  keen 
interest  in  politics,  Mr.  Lynch  did  not 
enter  the  political  arena  until  1882, 
when  he  ran  for  the  State  Senate  on  the 
Democratic  ticket  and  won  the  seat  by 
a  majority  of  five  thousand  votes.  Dur- 
ing the  two  regular  sessions  of  the 
Legislature  and  a  special  session  called 
by  Governor  Stoneman  in  1885,  Mr. 
Lynch  made  a  persistent  and  determined 
fight  against  every  unnecessary  appro- 
priation and  measure  of  extravagance. 
During  this  and  two  other  terms  Mr. 
Lynch  was  closely  connected  with  the 
many  attempts  at  legislation  against 
the  railroads.  In  fact  he  introduced 
several    measures    to    prevent    railway 


aggression,    but    all    were    defeated    by 
the  corporation  hirelings. 

Jeremiah  Lynch,  to  quote  from  The 
San  Francisco  Chronicle,  is  the  man 
"who  made  San  Francisco  too  hot  to 
hold  Boss  Buckley."  The  senator's 
fight  against  Christopher  Buckley,  un- 
scrupulous Democratic 
blind  boss  of  the 
eighties  and  nineties, 
had  its  inception  while 
Mr.  Lynch  was  in  the 
State  Legislature, 
when  he  saw  in  all 
their  force  the  evils  of 
"the  system."  Senator 
Lynch  wrote  a  little 
monograph  entitled 
"Buckleyism,"  which 
subsequently  became 
famous  for  its  scathing 
denunciation  of  the 
blind  politician  and  his 
myrmidons.  The 
pamphlet  received  a 
column  and  a  half  re- 
view in  the  London 
Times  and  was  noted 
by  Professor  Bryce  in 
his  "American  Com- 
monwealth." 

With  the  publication 
of  "Buckleyism"  the 
fight  was  on.  It  was 
the  first  open  and  in- 
dependent cry  against 
bossism.  But  it  was 
not  until  after  he  had 
spent  some  time  abroad  that  Senator 
Lynch  brouglit  his  campaign  against 
crooked  politics  to  a  decided  victory. 
Returning  to  San  Francisco  he  became 
a  member  of  the  Wallace  Grand  Jury 
and  was  largely  instrumental  in  caus- 
ing that  body  to  indict  Chris  Buckley 
and  his  fellow  boss,  Sam  Rainey. 

The  political  career  of  Senator  Lynch 
closed  with  his  race  for  the  United 
States  Senate,  soon  after  his  Grand 
Jury  work.  He  was  given  a  consider- 
able number  of  votes  in  the  caucus. 
Stephen  J.  White  secured  the  nomina- 
tion, however,  and  was  elected.  Since 
that  time  Senator  Lynch  has  been  in 
politics  simply  in  an  advisory  sort  of 
capacity. 

Tlie  rush  of  gold  seekers  to  the  Klon- 
dike carried  Mr.  Lynch  along  with  it, 
and  in  the  fall  of  1898  he  found  himself 
in  the  frozen  north  at  the  head  of  large 
mining  operations.  He  remained  in  the 
Klondike  three  years.  At  times  he  had 
as  many  as  a  hundred  men  working  un- 
der his  direction,  and  he  returned  to 
civilization  in  1902  with  a  handsome 
fortune. 

He  is  well  remembered  in  Alaska  as 
the  man  who  invented  a  new  method  of 
tliawing  the  ground  to  work  it  for  gold. 
He  evolved  and  perfected  a  hollow  drill 
through  vrhich  steam  is  fed,  thawing 
as  it  goes,  and  by  which  work  that  for- 
merly took  three  or  four  men  eight 
hours  to  perform  can  be  done  in  twice 


289 


as  many  minutes.  Mr.  Lynch  never  has 
patented  his  process.  He  saw  tliat  tlie 
mining-  community  needed  it  and  lie 
gave  it  willingly  for  the  general  good. 
Today  the  drill  is  being  used  all  over 
Alaska. 

Since  his  return  from  Alaska  Mr. 
Lyncli  has  had  no  business  pursuit.  He 
has  spent  his  time  in  extensive  travel, 
has  been  to  Europe  and  Egypt  a  dozen 
times  or  more  and  has  circled  the  globe. 

As  an  autlior  Mr.  Lynch  has  gained 
particular  note.  His  friends  were  so 
surprised  at  the  literary  excellence  of 
his  tirst  production,  "Buckleyism,"  tliat 
tliey  couldn't  believe  lie,  a  man  who  had 
never  displayed  his  talent  in  this  direc- 
tion, wrote  it.  So  he  wrote  another 
book  to  prove  he  did. 

This  second  book  w^as  the  famous 
"Egyptian  Sketches,"  a  work  that  the 
book  reviewers  promptly  termed  a 
classic.  It  is  well  written  and  as  popu- 
lar today  as  when  it  first  was  issued. 
It  was  commented  upon  widely  by  the 
Athenaeum  and  the  London  Spectator 
for  its  vivid  portrayal  of  true  Egyptian 
life  and  scenery.  The  ■work  was  pro- 
duced in  1891,  after  Mr.  Lynch  had  spent 
a  year  in  the  lotus  land. 

While  in  Alaska,  Mr.  Lynch  wrote  and 
had  published  in  London  another  in- 
teresting book,  "Three  Years  in  the 
Klondike."  Tliis  excited  such  comment 
as  to  cause  it  to  be  translated  into  both 
French  and  Spanish.  It,  like  "Egyptian 
Sketches,"  is  a  faithful  portrayal  of  a 
certain  spot  on  the  earth's  surface. 
One  can  "feel"  the  cold  when  one  pe- 
ruses its  pages. 

What  is  considered  by  many  Mr. 
Lynch's  chief  work  is  the  latest  book, 
"A  Senator  of  the  Fifties,"  published 
in  1911.  This  is  the  story  of  one  of  the 
most  exciting  decades  San  Francisco 
and  California  have  known,  told  with 
the  brilliant  but  ill-fated  David  Brod- 
erick,  one-time  political  boss  and 
United  States  Senator,  as  the  principal 
character.  The  book  is  considered  one 
of  the  most  valuable  additions  to  the 
history  of  California  of  recent  years. 

During  tliese  years  in  which  his 
larger  books  have  appeared,  Mr.  Lynch 
has  written  a  number  of  miscellaneous 
poems  of  acknowledged  worth  which, 
if  collected,  would  fill  a  volume.  Late- 
ly, however,  he  has  done  nothing  seri- 
ous in  this  line,  although  his  friends 
are  importuning  liim  to  take  advan- 
tage of  good  healtli  and  a  clear  brain 
to  produce  sometliing  more  and  give 
the  reading  world  the  benefit  of  his 
w^ide  experience,  his  quaint  humor  and 
his  ability  as  a  story  teller. 

Mr.  Lynch  is  no  longer  a  senator.  He 
has  not  been  for  twenty  years.  But  his 
friends  persist  in  calling  liim  sucli,  and 
as  "Senator"  Lyncli  he  undoubtedly  will 
go  down  to  posterity.  He  has  never 
married.  Tie  is  one  of  the  "old  guard" 
of  the  Bohemian  Club,  where  he  makes 
his  home  when  in  San  Francisco. 


On  two  occasions  Mr.  Lynch  has  writ- 
ten and  produced  a  high  jinks  for  the 
Bohemian  Club.  One  of  these,  still 
vivid  in  the  minds  of  the  Bohemians, 
was  the  presentation  of  "The  Lady  Isis 
in  Bohemia"  on  the  evening  of  May  5, 
1914.  The  occasion  was  the  giving  of 
a  precious  mummy  to  the  club  by  Mr. 
Lynch. 

During  the  year  1890,  while  in  Egypt, 
Mr.  Lynch  procured  a  mummy  which  he 
presented  to  the  Bohemian  Club.  The 
mummy  -was  that  of  a  female  member 
of  the  re|ral  family  representing  the 
twenty-fourth  Egyptian  dynasty  and 
was  discovered  at  Girgeli  on  the  Nile 
just  prior  to  the  arrival  there  of  Mr. 
Lynch  and  United  States  Consul-Gen- 
eral  Schuyler  on  their  way  to  Tliebes. 
Two  other  mummies  he  brought  back, 
those  of  high  priests,  later  found  their 
way  into  the  Golden  Gate  Park  Memo- 
rial Museum.  These  were  destroyed,  as 
was  that  of  the  princess,  in  the  fire  of 
April,  1906. 

So  highly  prized  had  the  mummy  been 
by  the  Bohemian  Club  that  Mr.  Lynch 
set  out  to  secure  another  to  replace  the 
one  that  was  lost.  One  thing  and  an- 
other came  up  and  it  was  not  until 
seven  years  later  that  he  journeyel  to 
Cairo.  There  he  found  that  no  mum- 
mies were  to  be  had.  When  found,  tliey 
were  in  most  instances  claimed  by  the 
Cairo  Museum. 

About  to  give  up  in  despair,  Mr. 
Lynch  learned  of  the  existence  of  the 
mummy  of  a  royal  princess,  a  worship- 
per of  the  great  goddess  Isis,  in  the 
palace  of  a  Pasha  where  it  had  rested 
many  years.  The  Pasha  was  dead  but 
his  relatives,  not  regarding  the  ancient 
relic  with  the  same  veneration,  agreed 
to  part  with  it.  It  was  only  by  the 
intervention  of  certain  high  potentates 
in  Cairo,  liowever,  and  the  winning  over 
of  Lord  Kitchener,  present  war  lord  of 
Great  Britain,  that  Mr.  Lynch  obtained 
permission  to  transport  his  prize  to  San 
Francisco. 

The  Lady  Isis  was  installed  in  her 
present  resting  place  in  the  Bohemian 
Club  with  lavish  ceremony  and  after 
the  presentation  of  the  sketch  which 
Mr.  Lynch  had  written  for  the  occa- 
sion. 

Not  the  least  striking  attribute  of  Mr. 
Lynch — and  a  biographer,  to  be  just, 
must  be  complete — is  his  versatility. 
He  is  one  of  the  best  amateur  billiard 
and  chess  players  in  California.  He  can 
swim  all  day  and  ride  all  night,  even 
now.  He  has  read  pretty  much  of 
everything  worth  reading  and  remem- 
bers most  of  it.  He  can  read  Egyptian 
hieroglyphics  easily. 

Socially,  Mr.  Lynch  maintains  his 
reputation  for  cosmopolitanism  for  he 
is  a  member  of  fifteen  clubs  from  Cairo 
to  San  Francisco,  including  Paris,  New 
York  and  London,  among  tliose  of  the 
latter  the  Authors'  Club  and  the  Royal 
Geographical  Society. 


290 


JOHN  J.  McCLELLAN 


THERE  is  something-  about  a  pipe- 
organist  that  seems  to  lift  him 
out,  as  it  were,  from  among-  tlie 
rest  of  mankind.  Undouljtedly 
this  something  is  liis  art.  A  man  wlio 
can  bring  fortli  from  a  keyl)oard  of 
endless  intricacy  tones  that  will  move 
the  thousands  to  tears, 
or  hold  them  spell- 
bound  veritably  for 
hours — there  is  in  this 
man  the  sublimity  of 
profound  genius.  He  is 
like  the  novelist,  the 
artist,  only  more  so. 
For  music  appeals  to 
our  primal  emotions  as 
words  or  colors  never 
can. 

John  Jasper  McClel- 
lan,  who  appeared  in 
five  wonderful  recitals 
in  Festival  Hall  at  the 
Panama-Pacific  Inter- 
national Exposition,  is 
a  pipe-organist.  He  is 
such  in  the  fullest 
sense.  Music  to  him  is 
life  itself.  As  organist 
at  the  famous  Mormon 
Tabernacle  at  Salt 
Lake  City  he  is  accus- 
tomed to  do  frequently 
what  he  did  in  San 
F  r  a  n  c  i  s  c  o — sway  a 
throng  as  it  never  was 
swayed  before  by  the  mere  movement 
of  a  finger. 

"Professor  McClellan,"  to  quote  a 
critic,  "understands  an  organ  as  others 
understand  a  person.  To  him  it  is 
something  more  than  a  collection  of 
pipes.  It  has  life.  It  breathes.  It 
talks  to  him.  He  is  a  master  which  it 
obeys  and  he  caresses  it  as  others 
would  a  pet.  He  talks  to  it  with  his 
hands  and  it  responds  in  the  language 
of  music.  It  becomes  eloquent  under 
his  touch.  People  flocked  to  hear  its 
oratory." 

John  J.  McClellan  was  born  at  Pay- 
son,  Utah,  April  20,  1874.  At  the  age 
of  ten  he  began  his  study  of  music. 
Later  he  went  to  Saginaw,  Michigan, 
and  studied  two  years  with  A.  W. 
Platte;  then  to  Ann  Arbor  and  was 
graduated  from  the  University  of  Mich- 
igan School  of  Music,  where  he  was  a 
pupil  under  Professors  A.  A.  Stanley, 
Johanij  Erich  Schmaal,  Alberto  Jonas 
and  Xavier  Scharwenka.  He  also  was 
a  pupil  of  Ernst  Jedliczka  of  Berlin, 
Germany. 

While  at  Ann  Arbor  Professor  Mc- 
Clellan organized  and  directed  the  first 
large  orchestra  there.  He  also  was 
organist  of  St.  Thomas  Catholic  Church 
and  pianist  of  the  University  Choral 
Society.  In  1893  he  was  assistant  to 
Professor  Stanley  on  the  great  organ 
used  at  the  World's  Columbian  Exposi- 
tion at  Chicago,  which  later  was 
Installed  at  Michigan  University.  Fol- 
lowing this  he  became  assistant  to  Pro- 


fessor Jonas  in  the  Michigan  School  of 
Music  and  during  1895-96  taught  musi- 
cal theory  there.  He  was  professor  of 
music  in  the  Brigham  Young  University 
at  Provo,  Utah,  in  1900-01  and  in 
the  latter  year  beca.me  a  member 
of  the  faculty  of  the  University  of 
Utah. 

Since  October  1,  1900, 
Professor  McClellan 
has  been  organist  of 
the  Mormon  Taberna- 
cle, which  has  the  sec- 
ond largest  pipe  organ 
in  the  world;  conduc- 
tor of  the  Salt  Lake 
Opera  Company  since 
1902,  and  director  of 
the  Salt  Lake  Sym- 
phony Orchestra  since 
1908.  He  founded  the 
Utah  Conservatory  of 
Music  at  Salt  Lake  in 
1911  and  remains  dean 
and  head  of  the  piano- 
forte department.  He 
is  now  at  work  on  an 
original  course  for  the 
study  of  the  piano.  To- 
day he  is  regarded  as 
the  leading  musician 
of  T'tah  and  more  stu- 
dents have  gone  from 
his  studio  to  European 
and  Eastern  art  cen- 
t  e  r  s  than  from  any 
other  studio  in  the  State. 

Professor  McClellan's  reputation  as 
a  concert  organ  recitalist  is  interna- 
tional. He  has  "opened"  pipe  organs 
in  nearly  every  State.  He  gave  four 
recitals  at  the  World's  Fair  in  St. 
Louis  and  ten  on  the  great  organ  at 
the  Jamestown  Exposition,  besides 
those  at  San  Francisco's  great  fair. 
Everywhere,  music  lovers  and  critics 
have  considered  him  one  of  the  most 
thorough  musicians  and  artists  of  his 
generation. 

Not  only  is  Professor  McClellan  an 
exponent  of  melody — he  creates  it.  In 
addition  to  several  songs,  anthems  and 
instrumental  compositions  he  composed 
the  "National  Ode  to  Irrigation," 
which  has  been  sung  at  the  National 
Irrigation  Congresses  of  Portland, 
Sacramento  and  Boise  by  the  Ogden 
(Utah)  Tabernacle  Choir  of  200  voices, 
each  rendition  costing  $12,000.  In  1911 
he  was  official  accompanist  of  the 
Mormon  Tabernacle  Choir's  triumphal 
tour  from  Salt  Lake  to  the  New  York 
City  Land  Show,  during  which  they  sang- 
his  ode  more  than  thirty  times  at  a 
cost  exceeding  $50,000.  He  is  Utah 
State  President  of  the  National  As- 
sociation of  Organists  and  a  colleague 
of  the  American  Guild  of  Organists, 
as  well  as  secretary  of  the  Clayton 
Music  Company  of  Salt  Lake  City. 

Professor  McClellan  is  essentially  an 
artist.  And  his  devotion  to  this  art 
is  one  of  his  most  noticeable  character- 
istics. 


291 


CHARLES    R.    McCORMICK 


LOOKING  back  over  the  passage  of 
time,  twelve  years  does  not  seem 
at  all  long  to  the  most  of  us. 
Why,  twelve  years  ago  we  weren't 
much  different  than  we  And  ourselves 
today.  But,  if  time  may  be  measured 
by  activities,  this  period  must  appear 
unusually  extended  to 
Charles  R.  McCormick. 
For  it  was  only  a 
dozen  years  ago  that 
he  established  in  San 
Francisco  a  lumber 
business  which  today 
is  one  of  the  largest  on 
the   Pacific   Coast. 

In  1903  Charles  R. 
McCormick,  with  little 
back  of  him  other  than 
practical  experience, 
opened  offlces  in  San 
Francisco  and  began 
selling  lumber  on  a 
commission  basis.  He 
then  had  but  one  em- 
ploye— a  stenographer. 
Today  his  employes 
are  numbered  by  hun- 
dreds. He  is  at  the 
head  of  Charles  R.  Mc- 
Cormick &  Co.,  lum- 
ber manufacturers  and 
dealers,  and  of  a  num- 
ber of  subsidiary  con- 
cerns, whose  annual 
business  runs  into  the 
millions.  And  lumber 
shipped  from  his  mills 
goes  to  all  parts  of  the  world. 

Born  July  6,  1870,  at  Saginaw,  Mich- 
igan, Mr.  McCormick  is  the  son  of 
A.  W.  McCormick,  a  pioneer  lumber  man 
of  Michigan.  The  elder  McCormick 
went  to  Saginaw — which  was  for  years 
the  greatest  lumbering  district  in  the 
world — in  1858,  when  it  was  a  small 
village,  and  grew  up  w^ith  the  town. 
Mr.  McCormick's  mother  was  Harriet 
(Frisbie)  McCormick. 

After  attending  the  public  schools  of 
Saginaw,  Mr.  McCormick  followed  his 
parents  to  New  York  State,  w^here  his 
father  purchased  a  farm  and  retired 
from  business.  Later  on  he  attended 
the  military  academy  at  Albany,  N.  Y., 
leaving  there  when  eighteen  years  old 
and  for  two  years  thereafter  working 
in  the  Albany  lumber  district. 

As  in  the  case  with  so  many  success- 
ful men,  Mr.  McCormick  began  at  the 
very  bottom.  With  the  experience  thus 
acquired  he  went  to  Ontonaeron,  Mich- 
igan, on  Lake  Superior,  and  became 
grader  in  the  mills  of  the  Diamond 
Match  Company.  Five  years  later  he 
went  into  the  lumber  inspection  and 
shipping  business  for  himself.  In  1S96 
a  forest  fire  destroyed  Ontonagon  and 
its  mills  and  Mr.  McCormick  removed 
to  Menominee,  Michigan,  and  estab- 
lished himself.  In  1901  he  came  west 
to  Portland,  and  a  few  months  later 
came  to  San  Francisco  to  accept  a  posi- 
tion as  San  Francisco  manager  for  the 
Hammond  Lumber  Company.  He  re- 
mained with  the  Hammond  people  until 
he  opened  his  own  offices  in  1903. 

Since    then    Charles    R.    McCormick    & 


Co.  have  built,  and  now  operate,  ten 
lumber  steamers.  Mr.  McCormick  is 
president  of  the  companies  that  own 
and  operate  the  steamers  Klamath,  Wil- 
lamette, Yosemite,  Multnomah,  Celilo, 
Sliosbone  and  Wapama,  and  also  oper- 
ates the  steamers  J.  B.  Stetson,  Temple 
E.  Dorr  and  Nehalem 
and  the  schooner 
Forest  Home.  Besides 
this,  the  c  mpany  is 
now  building  a  wooden 
schooner  of  record 
size,  capable  of  car- 
rying  2,000,000  feet 
of  lumber  and  with 
semi-Diesel  engines  as 
auxiliaries.  The  Mc- 
Cormick steamers  car- 
ried in  excess  of  20,000 
passengers  up  and 
down  the  Pacific  Coast 
in  1915. 

Mr.  McCormick  and 
h  i  s  associates  have 
practically  made  the 
town  of  St.  Helens, 
Oregon,  30  miles  down 
the  Columbia  River 
from  Portland.  He  is 
president  and  control- 
ling stockholder,  not 
only  of  Charles  R.  Mc- 
Cormick  &  Co.,  but 
also  of  the  St.  Helens 
Lumber  Company  and 
Columbia  County  Lum- 
ber Company,  which 
operate  two  huge  lumber  mills  at  St. 
Helens.  He  is  president  of  the  St.  Hel- 
ens Creosoting  Co.,  which  has  there  the 
largest  plant  of  its  kind  in  the  West;  of 
the  St.  Helens  Shipbuilding  Co.,  which 
has  its  own  sliipyard  for  constructing 
the  McCormick  vessels;  and  president 
also  of  the  St.  Helens  Light  &  Power  Co. 
and  other  related  concerns.  St.  Helens 
has  several  miles  of  waterfront,  besides 
12  miles  of  railroad  running  back  into 
the  timber,  and  it  is  Mr.  McCormick's 
idea  to  make  the  place  a  real  manufac- 
turing center,  with  the  erection  of  ad- 
ditional factories  to  handle  the  by- 
products of  the  lumber  mills,  which  now 
are  manufacturing  100,000,000  feet  of 
lumber  a  year. 

The  Charles  R.  McCormick  interests 
handled  201,000,000  feet  of  lumber  in 
1914.  Sales  offices  are  maintained  at 
San  Francisco,  Los  Angeles,  Portland 
and  New  York,  and  yards  at  San  Diego, 
Riverside,  San  Bernardino,  Oceanside 
and  Escondido,  besides  a  1,000-foot 
loading  dock  at  San  Pedro.  The  large 
yard  at  San  Diego  carries  a  lumber 
stock  of  10,000,000  feet,  and  the  San 
Pedro  dock  a  stock  of  4,000,000  to  6,000,- 
000  feet  of  mining  timbers;  from  San 
Pedro  are  supplied  nearly  all  the  mines 
of  Arizona.  This  San  Pedro  mining- 
timber  business  alone  averages  $1,500,- 
000  a  year  in  volume. 

In  1907  Mr.  McCormick  was  married 
in  San  Francisco  to  Miss  Florence  C. 
Cole,  daughter  of  the  late  Edward  P. 
Cole,  a  prominent  attorney.  The  couple 
have  two  children,  Charles  R.,  Jr.,  and 
Florence   C.   McCormick. 


202 


BENJAMIN  L.   McKINLEY 


FOR  thirteen  consecutive  years  Ben- 
jamin L.  McKinley  was  in  the 
United  States  District  Attorney's 
office    at    San    Francisco.       During 

this    period,    starting   in   with    tlie   rank 

of  assistant  United   States  attorney,   he 

advanced  himself  to  the  position  of  chief 

assistant,     and     finally 

to    the    United     States 

attorneyship     itself. 

Such   a   record   can 

stand  alone. 

Mr.    McKinley    was 

appointed    to    the 

United   States  A  t  t  o  r- 

ney's     office.     Northern 

District    of    California, 

on  July  26,  1901,  by  the 

late    President   McKin- 
ley.     From    the    outset 

he    was    successful    in 

prosecuting  actions, 

both  civil  and  criminal, 

and  the  records  of  the 

office  disclose  hundreds 

of    instances    in    which 

he  won  signal  victories 

at  bar.     He  handled  all 

legal    matters    pertain- 
ing  to    the    Postofflce 

Department  within  liis 

jurisdiction,    in  o  s  t    of 

the     work     of     the 

United  States  Secret 
Service,  the  more  important  Customs 
cases  and  a  great  deal  of  miscellaneous 
actions.  He  served  under  three  United 
States  Attorneys,  Marshall  B.  Wood- 
worth,  Robert  T.  Devlin  and  John  L. 
McNab.  On  January  1,  1911,  he  became 
chief  assistant,  by  appointment;  then 
on  June  26,  1913,  following  the  resigna- 
tion of  McNab  from  the  office,  Mr.  Mc- 
Kinley was  appointed  McNab's  succes- 
sor by  United  States  District  Judge 
William  C.  Van  Fleet.  Six  months  later, 
after  filling  the  office  with  general  sat- 
isfaction, he  resigned  and  was  suc- 
ceeded in  turn  by  John  W.  Preston,  the 
present  U.  S.  Attorney. 

Mr.  McKinley  is  a  native  of  San  Fran- 
cisco. He  was  born  July  26,  1874,  the 
son  of  Benjamin  F.  McKinley,  for  many 
years  connected  with  the  Postoffice  De- 
partment, and  of  Mary  A.  (Daly)  Mc- 
Kinley. President  William  McKinley 
was  his  first  cousin. 

After  receiving  his  preliminary  edu- 
cation in  San  Francisco's  public  schools 
Mr.  McKinley  was  graduated  from  the 
Clement  Grammar  School  with  the  class 
of  1888.  He  then  entered  St.  Ignatius 
College  and  was  graduated  from  that  in- 
stitution in  1893  with  the  degree  of 
A.  B.,  later  on  being  awarded  the  degree 
of  Master  of  Arts  there  also.  Im- 
mediately after  leaving  St.  Ignatius 
Mr.  McKinley  enrolled  at  Hastings  Col- 


lege of  the  Law,  the  legal  department 
of  the  University  of  California,  secured 
his  LL.  B.  and  was  admitted  to  practice 
law  in  California  in  1896. 

Five  years  Mr.  McKinley  practiced 
law  independently  in  San  Francisco, 
with  "consistent  success,  before  he  re- 
ceived his  appointment 
as  assistant  United 
States  District  Attor- 
ney. Since  his  with- 
drawal from  that  office 
in  1914  he  has  resumed 
h  1  s  private  practice. 
His  professional  work 
at  present  is  in  all 
branches  of  the  law. 

He  was  given  a  dis- 
tinct honor  when,  in 
1913,  he  was  appointed 
professor  of  law  at  St. 
Ignatius  College,  h  i  s 
alma  mater.  He  has 
held  this  position 
since,  regardless  of  the 
fact  that  it  takes 
up  considerable  time 
which  might  be  ap- 
plied  to  pursuits  of 
greater  pecuniary  re- 
ward. 

Politically,  Mr.  Mc- 
Kinley has  never  been 
active  as  an  office 
seeker,  although  he  has  worked  consist- 
ently for  his  party's  success.  He  is  a 
stanch  Republican  and  on  one  occasion, 
in  1909,  at  the  earnest  solicitations  of 
his  friends,  made  the  race  for  City  At- 
torney with  the  indorsement  of  the 
Business  Men's  Committee,  but  was  de- 
feated. 

For  many  years  Mr.  McKinley  has 
been  an  earnest  worker  on  behalf  of 
the  Young  Men's  Institute  and  has  held 
various  offices  in  the  organization.  He 
was  elected  Grand  President  of  the  T. 
M.  I.  in  1914  and  served  until  1915,  dur- 
ing which  time  he  was  head  of  a  juris- 
diction in  which  the  order  has  7,000  or 
8,000  members.  He  was  also  for  a  long 
time  Colonel  of  the  First  Regiment, 
League  of  the  Cross  Cadets,  resigning 
in  1913,  after  having  brought  the  regi- 
ment up  to  a  high  state  of  efficiency. 
He  is  an  active  member  of  the  Knights 
of  Columbus,  belongs  to  San  Fran- 
cisco lodge  No.  3,  B.  P.  O.  Elks,  and 
is  past  president  of  Precita  Parlor 
No.  187,  Native  Sons  of  the  Golden 
West. 

Because  of  his  long  connection  with 
the  United  States  Attorney's  office,  and 
the  large  number  of  cases  he  tried  in 
the  United  States  courts,  Mr.  McKin- 
ley is  today  considered  one  of  Califor- 
nia's leading  authorities  on  Federal 
law. 


293 


J.  E.  MANNING 


THE  truly  useful  citizen,  in  any 
community,  is  he  who  is  willing 
at  any  time  to  serve  either  liis 
city,  his  State  or  liis  country  in 
any  way  in  which  lie  can  accomplisli 
the  most  good.  J.  E.  Manning,  attor- 
ney at  law,  has  in  at  least  two  ways 
given  this  service.  He 
enlisted  for  the  Span- 
ish-American War  and 
helped  fight  for  his 
country  in  tlie  Philip- 
pines, and  lie  repre- 
sented Marin  County 
at  the  last  session  of 
the  State  Legislature 
and  was  a  stanch  de- 
fender of  his  constitu- 
ents' rights. 

A  native  of  Califor- 
nia, Mr.  Manning  was 
born  in  Oakland,  Octo- 
ber 3,  1S73,  the  son  of 
Andrew  Manning,  a 
farmer,  and  Mary  (Ke- 
hoe)  Manning.  After 
securing  his  prelimi- 
nary education  at  Sa- 
cred Heart  College  of 
San  Francisco,  he  at- 
tended for  a  year  at  St. 
Mary's  College,  Oak- 
land, and  was  gradu- 
ated in  1892  with  the 
degree  of  B.  S. 

The  same  year,  with  his  mind  set  on 
the  study  of  law,  Mr.  Manning  entered 
Hastings  College  of  Law.  His  spare 
time  he  spent  in  the  law  offices  of  Fisher 
Ames,  furthering  his  knowledge  of  the 
profession.  Hastings  awarded  him  his 
LL.  B.  in  1895  and  at  once  he  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  bar  and  commenced  prac- 
tice in  association  with  Mr.  Ames,  his 
preceptor. 

This  continued  until  June,  1898,  when, 
the  United  States  of  America  calling 
for  volunteers  in  its  war  with  Spain, 
Mr.  Manning  enlisted  as  a  private  in 
Battery  A.  1st  Battalion,  California 
Heavy  Artillery,  U.  S.  V.  He  saw  serv- 
ice in  the  Philippines  from  November, 
1898,  to  July,  1899,  when  his  command 
returned  to  San  Francisco,  where  he 
was  mustered  out.  He  was  a  non-com- 
missioned officer  at  the  time  his  organ- 
ization was  discharged  from  the 
service. 

Upon  doffing  the  khaki  for  "civilians" 
once  more,  he  resumed  his  professional 
association  with  Mr.  Ames,  and,  follow- 
ing the  San  Francisco  fire  of  1906,  be- 
came a  member  of  the  law  partnership 
of  Ames  &  Manning,  a  partnership  which 
continues  to  this  day.  Since  1903  Mr. 
Manning  has  made  his  home  in  San  An- 
selmo,  Marin  County,  although  his 
offices  are  in  the  Pacific  building,  San 
Francisco.  In  1908  he  was  chosen  city 
attorney  of  the  town  of  San  Anselmo, 
Marin  County,  and  filled  this  position 
with  credit  until  May,   1914. 

At  the  general  election  on  November  3, 


1914,  Mr.  Manning  was  chosen  as  State 
Assemblyman  from  the  17th  Assembly 
district,  Marin  County,  on  the  Repub- 
lican ticket.  Subsequently  he  fathered 
a  number  of  important  bills.  While  at 
the  Legislature  he  was  characterized 
by  his  fair  and  impartial  attitude 
toward  labor,  as  w^ell 
as  by  his  refusal  to 
take  the  labor  pro- 
gramme— or  any  other 
programme,  for  that 
matter — right  down 
the  line.  When  an  at- 
tempt was  made,  just 
before  the  election,  to 
get  him  to  bind  him- 
self to  one  fixed  policy, 
his  answer  was  that 
on  all  important  ques- 
tions a  lawmaker  must 
consider  carefully  all 
arguments,  pro  a  n  d 
con,  before  he  can  ar- 
rive at  a  conclusion 
that  satisfies  his  con- 
science  tliat  he  is 
right.  This  attitude  he 
maintained  in  the  face 
of  all  who  approached 
him  with  the  idea  of 
attempting  to  swerve 
him  from  his  policy  of 
justice. 

One  of  Mr.  Man- 
ning's bills,  which  was  passed  and  ap- 
proved, places  the  street  improvement 
bond  on  a  solid  basis  and  it  makes  it 
merchantable  and  one  that  a  bank  will 
accept.  Instead  of  the  contractor  mak- 
ing collections  on  the  bonds  the  amounts 
of  the  interest  and  redemption  are 
placed  on  the  tax  bills,  and  all  the 
banker  need  to  do  is  to  go  each  six 
months  to  the  city  treasurer  and  collect 
his  accumulated  interest,  and  each  year, 
from  the  same  office,  collect  installment 
redemption  payment  on  the  bonds  he 
holds. 

Another  bill  prepared  by  Mr.  Man- 
ning which  passed  both  houses  and  was 
vetoed,  provided  for  the  improvement 
of  streets  and  roads  in  unincorporated 
towns  by  the  County  Board  of  Supervi- 
sors. As  it  is  at  present,  a  town  must 
incorporate  before  it  can  do  street 
work,  and  in  many  cases  the  expense  is 
prohibitory.  The  bill,  if  it  became  a  law, 
■would  make  incorporation  unnecessary. 
In  addition  to  his  other  public  serv- 
ices, Mr.  Manning  has  been  secretary 
of  the  sanitary  board  of  sanitary  dis- 
trict No.  1  of  Marin  County  for  the  past 
eleven  years. 

His  law  practice  is  almost  entirely 
of  a  civil  nature.  He  is  general  counsel 
for  a  number  of  corporations  and  has 
also  done  considerable  work  in  the  pro- 
bate courts. 

Mr.  Manning  is  a  member  of  the  B. 
P.  O.  Elks,  the  Native  Sons  of  the 
Golden  West  and  the  United  Spanish 
War  Veterans. 


m 


JOSEPH  MARTIN 


refrigeratini 


ONE  of  California's  piiiicipal  in- 
dustries is  the  shipping  of  per- 
ishable fruit  in  refrigerating  cars 
across  the  Sierra  and  Rockies  to 
Eastern  markets,  and  depositing  it, 
thousands  of  carloads  a  year,  fresh  and 
tempting  on  the  breakfast  tables  of 
Chicago,  New  York 
and  a  score  of  other 
cities. 

Joseph  Martin,  gen- 
eral manager  of  the 
National  Ice  and  Cold 
Storage  Company  o  f 
California,  in  the  early 
eighties  ^vas  responsi- 
ble for  the  first  ship- 
in  e  n  t  of  California 
fruit  under  ice  to  the 
East.  Ho^v  much  good 
has  resulted  to  Cali- 
f  o  r  n  i  a  through  this 
project  may  readily  be 
conceived.  Thousands 
of  men  and  women  to- 
day are  provided  with 
employment  by  the 
State's  fruit  industry. 
California's  greatest 
advertising  asset  is 
her  ability  to  place  her 
fruit  on  the  Eastern 
markets  in  a  season 
when  the  East  itself 
is  shivering  under 
snow  and  ice — and  this 
asset  is  directly  trace- 
able to  Mr.  Martin's 
launching  of  the 
scheme. 

With  the  success  of  this  project  as- 
sured Mr.  Martin  turned  about  and 
laid  the  foundation  for  another  great 
industry  by  shipping  to  Australia  the 
first  ice  and  cold  storage  machines  ever 
used  in  the  Antipodes.  This  has  made 
it  possible  to  ship  Australian  meat  to 
the  United  States,  to  the  British  Isles 
and  to  Continental  Europe,  and  the 
trade  has  gone  on  unceasingly  ever 
since. 

Joseph  Martin  was  born  in  Prods- 
ham,  Cheshire,  England,  April  21,  1854, 
the  son  of  Joseph  Martin  and  Mary 
(Grice)  Martin.  He  was  educated  at 
Overton  College  in  Frodsham  and  in 
1868,  when  fourteen  years  old,  came  to 
San  Francisco  by  way  of  the  Cape 
Horn  passage.  He  arrived  here  Octo- 
ber   21,    1868. 

It  is  significant  that  his  first  em- 
ployment was  in  the  ice  business.  He 
advanced  rapidly.  In  1872,  when  only 
eighteen,  he  was  sent  on  an  important 
mission  to  England  and  Europe,  where 
he  remained  nearly  a  year.  Returning 
to  California  he  became,  like  others, 
interested  in  the  gold  mining  possi- 
bilities of  this  State  and  Nevada.  He 
entered  the  new  field,  locating  for  a 
time  at  Virginia  City,  Nevada,  during 
the  boom   there. 

The  year  1875,  however,  brought  Mr. 
Martin  back  to  San  Francisco.  He  or- 
ganized the  Mountain  Ice  Company  in 
1878,  operated  it  with  profit  for  five 
years  and  in  1883  launched  the  Floris- 
ton     Ice     Company.       Later    he     helped 


form  the  Union  Ice  Company,  and 
about  this  same  time  started  the  ship- 
ping of  California  fruit  overland.  At 
different  times  Mr.  Martin  has  organ- 
ized and  operated  a  score  or  more  of 
ice  manufacturing  concerns.  In  his 
building  up  of  the  ice  and  cold  storage 
business  he  has  come 
to  l)e  known  as  one  of 
the  leaders  in  the  in- 
dustry here  and  else- 
wliere. 

By  an  amalgamation 
of  the  smaller  plants 
in  1912  was  organized 
the  National  Ice  and 
Cold  Storage  Company 
of  California,  with  an 
authorized  capital 
stock  of  $15,000,000. 
The  company's  charter 
is  the  most  compre- 
hensive ever  granted 
any  ice  and  cold  stor- 
age enterprise.  With 
an  eye  to  the  opening 
of  the  Panoma  Canal 
the  corporation  map- 
ped out  an  extensive 
field.  It  is  authorized 
to  buy,  sell  and  deal 
in  ice  and  all  kinds  of 
refrigeration  and  to 
carry  on  an  export  and 
import  business  upon 
the  broadest  lines  with 
several  States  and 
foreign  countries;  to 
maintain  offices  and  stores  in  the 
United  States  and  foreign  countries; 
to  construct  and  operate  refrigerating 
plants  anywhere:  to  buy,  sell  and  deal 
in  securities  of  other  corporations  and 
to  buy,  obtain  and  hold  patent  rights 
and    trade    marks. 

Joseph  Martin  has  been  characterized 
as  the  man  who  started  the  ice  busi- 
ness on  this  coast  "with  a  single  cake 
of  ice"  and  nursed  it  into  a  great  in- 
dustry. But  while  doing  this  he  was 
not  neglecting  to  look  about  him  for 
opportunities  of  other  kinds.  He  in- 
vested in  several  oil  and  mining  prop- 
erties  with    good   success. 

In  addition  to  his  very  responsible 
position  as  general  manager  of  the 
National  Ice  and  Cold  Storage  Company 
of  California,  Mr.  Martin  is  vice-presi- 
dent of  the  Fresno  Consumers'  Ice 
Company,  vice-president  of  the  Nevada 
National  Ice  &  Cold  Storage  Company, 
a  director  of  the  Commercial  Petro- 
leum Company  and  the  Atlas  Wonder 
IMining  Company,  and  secretary  of  the 
Sparks-Reno    Electric    Railroad. 

Mr.  Martin  is  one  of  those  men  who 
believe  that  to  attain  real  success  in 
any  enterprise,  one  must  absorb  just 
as  much  knowledge  as  possible  of  his 
business.  It  was  with  the  view  of 
furthering  his  education  in  this  way 
that,  in  1909,  he  toured  the  world  in- 
specting the  ice  and  cold  storage  plants 
of  every  foreign  city  in  which  they 
could  be  found.  His  two  sons,  Joseph 
Martin,  Jr.,  and  Chester  Miller  Martin, 
accompanied  him  and  the  trip  w^as  a 
combination   of   business   and   pleasure. 


It 


295 


CAPTAIN   WILLIAM   MATSON 


ONE  bright  day  in  the  year  1S67 
the  schooner  Bridgewater,  after 
a  long  and  hazardous  voyag'e 
around  the  Horn  from  New  York 
City,  passed  in  through  the  Golden  Gate 
and  dropped  anchor  in  tlie  Bay  of  San 
Francisco.  Among  the  crew,  which 
was  impatient  to  rid  itself  of  memories 
cf  storms  encountered  and  overcome 
and  to  stand  once  more  on  terra  firma, 
was  a  husky  18-year-old  youth — Wil- 
liam Matson. 

That  was  nearly  half  a  century  ago, 
the  day  when  William  Matson  first 
strode  up  Market  street  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, eager  for  an  inspection  of  tlie 
city  whose  fame  already  reached  around 
the  world.  Today,  after  decades 
crammed  full  of  activity.  Captain  Will- 
iam Matson  stands  as  founder  and  liead 
of  the  Matson  Navigation  Company,  ono 
of    the    greatest    ocean    transportation 


companies  on  the  Pacific,  as  Consul  for 
Sweden,  as  president  or  director  of  sev- 
eral big  corporations  and  as  one  of  the 
most  highly  respected  and  most  influen- 
tial workers  for  commercial  an.l  civic 
betterment  in  the  State  of  California. 

Among  the  corporations  in  which 
Captain  Matson  is  interested  as  officer 
or  director  are:  Matson  Navigation  Co., 
Honolulu  Consolidated  Oil  Co.,  Paau- 
hau  Sugar  Plantation  Co.,  Atlns  Won- 
der Mining  Co.,  Commercial  Petroleum 
Co.,  Hawaiian  Oil  Co.,  Honolulu  Oil  Co., 
Honolulu  Plantation  Co.,  Parkside 
Realty    Co.    and    Wonder    Water    Co. 

Captain  Matson  is  a  power  in  busi- 
ness circles.  And  he  is  a  power  because 
of  upright  dealing,  a  spirit  Of  progres- 
siveness,  and  a  firm  belief  that  Califor- 
nia is  to  become,  with  its  industries  and 
its  shipping,  one  of  the  foremost  of 
these  United  States. 


296 


E.  J.  MILEY 


NEVER    does   a    man    gain    success 
in  tliis  world  witliout  tiiere  be- 
ing a  good  reason  for  it.  Analyze 
his    career    and    you    will    find, 
invariably,  honest  expenditure  of  effort 
and    a    consistent    struggle    against    re- 
versals on  the  high  road  to  achievement. 

When  circumstances 
over  which  he  had  no 
control  forced  him  into 
inactivity  in  one  line, 
Einmor  Jerome  Miley 
turned  to  another  and 
developed  himself  in 
that.  Today  he  is  presi- 
dent  and  general 
manager  of  the  State 
Consolidated  Oil  Com- 
p  a  n  y  ,  with  offices  in 
Los  Angeles,  and  a 
commanding  figure  in 
the  oil  industry  of  the 
nation. 

Born  October  22,1873, 
in  St.  Clair  County, 
Illinois,  son  of  George 
C.  Miley  and  Nancy 
(Wildermann)  Miley, 
he  was  orphaned  when 
still  young.  When 
seventeen  years  old  he 
came  to  California,  was 
graduated  from  the 
San  Francisco  High 
School  in  1895,  and  on 
this  foundation  began 
building  his  career. 

His  start  was  in  the 
fruit  growing  business,  of  which  he 
had  learned  a  great  deal  during  his 
school  vacations.  He  leased  deciduous 
fruit  orchards  in  Solano  County  and  for 
the  next  five  years  shipped  his  product, 
with  prevailing  success,  to  outside 
markets.  During  the  same  period  he 
also  raised  citrus  fruits  in  Southern 
California. 

About  this  time  interest  was  being 
awakened  in  California's  possibilities 
as  an  oil  producing  State.  In  1900  Mr. 
Miley  sold  his  fruit  holdings  and  be- 
came interested  with  Joseph  B.  Dabney 
in  oil.  The  two  leased  a  tract  of  land 
in  the  McKittrick  district  in  the  San 
Joaquin  Valley  and  drilled  ten  wells 
the  first  year.  Later  the  Dabney  Oil 
Company  was  formed  and  Mr.  Dabney 
and  Mr.  Miley  sold  out  their  holdings 
to  the  new  concern. 

Mr.  Miley  then  turned  about  and  be- 
came interested  in  the  Silver  Bow  Oil 
Company,  with  holdings  in  the  McKit- 
trick and  Midway  districts.  The  Mid- 
way has  since  become  one  of  the  most 
famous  oil  sections  in  the  world,  but 
at  that  time  it  was  undeveloped  and 
Mr.  Miley  was  one  of  its  pioneer  pros- 
pectors. The  Silver  Bow  was  a  Mon- 
tana corporation  and  Mr.  Miley  was  its 
general  manager  for  California.  In- 
dependently, he  drilled  and  brought  in 
the  first  commercial  ■well  in  the  extreme 
north  end  of  the  McKittrick  district. 
In  1903  came  a  slump  in  the  oil  in- 
dustry and  Mr.  Miley's  company  ceased 
operations.  He  started  out  for  himself 
and  drilled  several  wells,  but  the  market 


failing  to  relax  he  went  to  Nevada  and 
interested  himself  in  mining.     He  began 
developing    copper    mines,    only    to    run 
into    another    period    of    financial    de- 
pression   following    the    San    Francisco 
fire   of   1906.      Then  he   returned  to   San 
Fianci.sco   ;in<l   associated   himself   with 
tlie    Summit   Construc- 
tion   Company    in     the 
rebuilding  of  the  city. 
The      year      1908 
brought    new    vitality 
to  the  oil  industry  and 
Mr.    Miley   again    in- 
vaded   the    McKittrick 
fields,    forming,    with 
David    J.    Graham,    the 
State     Oil    Company, 
with    Mr.    Miley    as 
president    and    general 
manager.   The   concern 
operated    until    March, 
1911,    then    took    over 
personal     holdings     of 
Miley  and  Graham  and 
was   reincorporated   as 
the  State  Consolidated 
Oil  Company,  with  Mr. 
Miley  still  at  its  head. 
With    Joseph    B.    Dab- 
ney, in  1913,  Mr.  Miley 
developed  properties  in 
Ventura  County  under 
the  name  of  the  Hidal- 
go   Oil    Company,    but 
sold    out    in    1914,    al- 
though the  State  Con- 
solidated still  operates 
there.      Early   in    1914,    again    with    Mr. 
Dabney  and  under  the  name  of  Joseph 
B.  Dabney  &  Company,  he  began  devel- 
opment once  more  in  the  Midway  fields, 
where    the    concern    at    present    has    15 
producing     wells.       Mr.     Miley     retains 
valuable    holdings    also    in    the    McKit- 
trick,   Bellridge    and    Front    fields. 

Mr.  Miley  became  a  national  figure 
in  the  oil  business  when,  in  1910,  he  was 
one  of  the  first  chosen  as  member  of  the 
California  oil  men's  Washington  dele- 
gation. He  gave  valuable  aid  in  com- 
piling data  for  presentation  to  Congress 
and  was  rewarded  by  a  personal  com- 
pliment from  the  Congressional  com- 
mittee that  was  investigating  the 
industry.  Also  the  report,  which  fol- 
lowed the  withdrawal  of  millions  of 
acres  of  oil  lands  by  the  Government, 
brought  about  new  laws  clearing  up 
titles  and  protecting  investors  against 
loss. 

Fort  Miley,  San  Francisco,  is  named 
in  honor  of  Mr.  Miley's  brother,  John 
David  Miley,  who  gained  heroic  renown 
in  the  Spanish-American  war.  From 
First  Lieutenant  he  became  chief  aid 
to  General  Shaffer,  was  brevetted 
Brigadier-General  and  given  the  rank 
of  Lieutenant  Colonel  in  the  volunteer 
army.  Later,  while  Inspector  General 
in  the  Philippines,  he  died. 

E.  J.  Miley  was  married  in  1898  to 
Beatrice  M.  Butler,  daughter  of  A.  B. 
Butler,  former  Fresno  vineyardist  and 
oil  operator.  They  have  three  sons, 
Emmor  Jerome  Jr.,  15;  Alban  Butler, 
7;  and  David,  3. 


297 


THOMAS  Lr  MILLER 


How  forcibly,  sometimes,  do  little 
things  or  a  combination  of  little 
things,  react  upon  and  shape  our 
future  destinies!  A  single  ac- 
tion, a  spoken  word,  even  a  tliought 
has  swervtd  men  from  tlie  path  tliey 
were  treading  and  made  their  lives 
something  entirely  dif- 
ferent from  t  li  a  t  on 
which  they  had 
planned. 

Thomas  L.  Miller, 
president  of  the  West 
C  o  a  s  t-San  Francisco 
Life  Insurance  Com- 
pany,  owes  his  en- 
trance to  the  insur- 
ance field  largely  to 
the  fact  that  as  a  youtli 
he  was  attracted  by 
the  sea  and  spent  a 
great  deal  of  liis  time 
on  and  about  the  wa- 
ter. In  this  way  he 
picked  up  a  fund  of 
first-hand,  practical  in- 
formation o  f  things 
maritime;  and  when 
the  old  Commercial 
Insurance  Company  of 
California  wanted  a 
man  to  take  charge  of 
its  marine  department, 
Mr.  Miller,  by  reason 
of  his  knowledge  and 
experience,  was  given 
the  job. 

In  1875,  following  a 
course  in  Urban  Academy  of  San  Fran- 
cisco, an  early-day  school  which  then 
took  the  place  of  a  college,  Mr.  Miller 
had  secured  a  place  as  bookkeeper  in 
the  old  Mercliants'  Exchange  Bank.  He 
remained  there  several  months,  until 
the  bank  went  into  the  hands  of  a  re- 
ceiver. Then,  casting  about  for  another 
job,  he  landed  the  one  with  the  Com- 
mercial   Insurance    Company. 

For  something  like  nine  years  Mr. 
Miller  remained  with  this  concern.  At 
first  he  had  charge  of  the  marine  de- 
partment. Later  on  he  went  to  Port- 
land, Oregon,  and  with  J.  W.  G.  Cofran 
represented  the  Commercial  Insurance 
Company  and  the  Hartford  Fire  In- 
surance Company  as  general  agent  in 
the  Pacific  Northwest.  Resigning  from 
this  agency  in  1S85,  he  returned  to 
San  Francisco  and  for  the  next  four  or 
five    years    managed    his    own    interests. 

At  the  end  of  this  period  Mr.  Miller 
entered  the  insurance  field  again  and, 
in  association  with  L.  L.  Bromwell  and 
M.  A.  Newell  became  general  agent  of 
the  People's  Fire  Insurance  Company 
of  Manchester,  N.  H.,  and  of  the  Amazon 
Insurance  Company  of  Cincinnati.  After 
a  couple  of  years  he  sold  out  his  inter- 
est in  the  agency  and  took  over  the 
Pacific  Coast  agency  of  the  Southern 
Insurance  Company  of  New  Orleans,  re- 
maining so  until  the  company  retired 
from    the  Coast. 

Then,    in    1895,    Mr.    Miller   went    with 


the  Pacific  Mutual  Life  Insurance  Com- 
pany as  assistant  secretary  and  mana- 
ger of  its  industrial  department.  The 
Pacific  Mutual,  in  September,  1901,  scld 
its  industrial  insurance  business  to  the 
INIetropolitan  Lil'e  Insurance  Company, 
and  early  in  1902  Mr.  Miller  went  with 
the  Metropolitan  as  su- 
perintendent of  agen- 
cies at  tlie  home  ofl^ce 
in  New  York.  He 
.served  in  this  and  otlier 
capacities  until  1905, 
wlien  he  Viroke  down  in 
health  and  returned  to 
S  a  n  Francisco  lor  a 
much  needed  rest. 

Tlie  organization  of 
the  West  Coast  Life  In- 
surance Company  was 
brought  about  by  Mr. 
Miller  in  1905,  in  asso- 
ciation with  Dr.  George 
A.  Moore,  former  presi- 
dent  of  the  Pacific 
Mutual.  Dr.  Moore  was 
made  the  first  president 
of  the  new  concern, 
and  Mr.  Miller  vice- 
president.  The  organ- 
ization was  effected 
just  in  time  to  be  swept 
away  by  the  fire  of 
April,  1906,  which  de- 
stroyed offices,  statis- 
tics and  tlie  best  insur- 
a  n  c  e  library  west  of 
tlie  Missouri  river.  Al- 
most before  the  smoke  had  cleared  away 
tlie  company  had  rented  a  flat  on  Ellis 
street  and  had  resumed  business.  No 
furniture  was  to  lie  had  and  Mr.  Miller 
sat  on  a  box,  using  a  packing  case  for 
a  desk.  It  was  not  until  July,  1907, 
that  a  downtown  office  could  be  secured. 
On  February  16,  1915,  occurred  an 
event  important  in  local  insurance  cir- 
cles. This  was  the  consolidation  of  tlie 
West  Coast  Life  with  the  San  Francisco 
Life  Insurance  Company,  incorporate;l 
in  1910.  Mr.  Miller  became  president  of 
the  new  West  Coast-San  Francisco  Life 
Insurance  Company. 

The  new  concern,  with  a  capital  stock 
of  $350,000,  strengthens  the  security  of 
policy  holders  and  makes  a  strong  in- 
fluence in  Northern  California.  Life  in- 
surance companies  are  tlie  biggest  gath- 
erers and  centralizers  of  money  in  the 
country  today.  And  the  fact  that  Mr. 
Miller  is  and  has  been  for  a  long  time 
a  leader  in  Pacific  Coast  insurance  cir- 
cles, augurs  that  the  West  Coast-San 
Francisco  Life  will  become  the  domi- 
nant factor  in  the  Northern  California 
investment  field. 

Mr.  Miller  belongs  to  the  Burlingame 
Country  Club,  San  Francisco  Commer- 
cial Club  and  the  Masonic  order,  Knights 
Templar  and  the  Sliriners.  He  was  mar- 
ried in  1885  in  San  Francisco  to  Eleanor 
L.  Laidley  and  has  one  son,  Thomas 
Nuttall  Miller,  a  mining  engineer  at 
present  in  Korea. 


298 


THOMAS  S.  MINOT 


EIGHT  years  of  litigation  to  set 
aside  land  grants  on  the  Pacific 
Coast  has  placed  Thomas  S.  Minot, 
attoi'ney  at  law,  in  a  unique  posi- 
tion among-  his  colleagues,  inasmuch  as 
he  is  the  first  man  locally  to  launch 
such  litigation  against  land  titles  which 
h  e  believes  wrong- 
fully  held. 

On  July  12,  1915,  was 
handed  down  by  Jus- 
tice Charles  E.  Wol- 
verton  of  the  U.  S.  Dis- 
trict Court  for  Oregon 
a  decision  which  set- 
tles,  declares  Mr. 
Minot,  the  legal  contro- 
versy over  the  Coos 
Bay  Wagon  Road 
Grant,  in  which  litiga- 
tion Mr.  Minot  repre- 
sented many  people  de- 
termined to  break  the 
grant  and  distribute 
the  land  to  bona-fide 
settlers. 

The  first  suit  against 
the  Southern  Oregon 
Company,  claimant  o  f 
the  grant,  was  brought 
by  Mr.  Minot  in  1907 
before  the  then  U.  S. 
Circuit  Court  at  Port- 
land. It  involved  tne 
aforesaid  land  grant, 
which  was  made  by 
Congress  in  1869,  dur- 
ing the  reconstruction 
period  following  the  Civil  War.  Con- 
gress granted  it  to  the  State  of  Oregon 
in  trust;  the  State  passed  it  along  to 
the  Coos  Bay  Wagon  Road  Company  in 
trust,  and  finally  it  was  acquired  by  the 
Southern  Oregon  Companj-  in  violation, 
says  Minot,  of  the  original  granting 
act.  It  is  a  12-mile  strip,  nearly  68 
miles  long,  extending  from  Coos  Bay 
to  Roseburg,  Oregon,  containing  95,000 
acres  of  excellent  timber  and  agricul- 
tural land,  valued  at   $15,000,000. 

The  Supreme  Court's  decision,  made 
by  Justice  Joseph  J.  McKenna  June  21, 
1915,  in  United  States  vs.  the  Oregon 
&  California  Railroad  Company,  be- 
came the  law  of  the  case  against  the 
Coos  Bay  grant.  In  the  railroad  case 
numerous  settlers  on  the  property  in 
controversy  came  in  as  cross-complain- 
ants or  interveners.  Justice  McKenna's 
ruling  was  one  of  the  strangest  and 
ablest  in  American  legal  history.  It 
was  wholly  negative — all  parties  liti- 
gant were  beaten.  The  lower  court, 
which  forfeited  the  land  to  the  Govern- 
ment, was  reversed  and  the  Government 
thrown  out  of  court  on  the  ground  that 
it  l-,ad  no  right  to  forfeit.  The  rail- 
road's grant  was  declared  legal  to  the 
extent  that  the  grantee  was  entitled 
to  an  equity  of  $2.50  an  acre  but  should 
lose  the  grant.  And  the  interveners 
were  denied  relief  on  the  ground  that 
they,  not  being  in  privity  with  the  orig- 
inal contracting  parties,  never  had  a 
right  to  settle  on  the  land  or  to  en- 
force its  conditions. 

The    result    of    this    decision    will    be 


that  Congress  must  enact  a  law  by 
which  a  commission  may  be  appointed 
to  sell  the  land  for  $2.50  an  acre  plus 
the  expenses  of  the  commission.  The 
interveners  must  take  their  chance  with 
the  others  who  may  try  to  gain  a  por- 
tion  of   the  land   at   the   sale. 

Mr.  Minot,  in  1909, 
brought  suit  against 
the  Southern  Pacific 
Railroad  Company  be- 
fore the  U.  S.  District 
Court  at  Los  Angeles 
on  behalf  of  45  oil  men 
to  enforce  or  control 
an  exception  in  the 
patent  to  6,960  acres  of 
oil  land  near  Coalinga, 
valued  at  $3,000,000. 
The  exception,  decree 
of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Interior,  and  patent,  is 
to  the  effect  that  min- 
eral lands  were  ex- 
cluded from  the  rail- 
road grant.  Through 
Mr.  Minot's  efforts  the 
Government  was 
brought  in  and  has  in- 
stituted suit  to  set 
aside  the  patents  cov- 
e  r  i  n  g-  this  territory. 
This  litigation,  involv- 
ing oil  lands  valued  at 
$2,000,000,000,  is  pend- 
ing. The  Southern  Pa- 
cific is  still,  in  defiance 
of  law,  says  Mr.  Minot, 
taking  oil  from  this  Government  land 
and  not  paying  for  it — nor  owning  it, 
unless  it  and  the  Standard  Oil  Company 
own  the  Government.  Meldrum,  Puter, 
McKinley,  Mitchell  and  others  were 
convicted  of  looting  the  public  domain 
in  Oregon  in  the  land  fraud  cases,  but 
no  one  interferes  with  the  Southern 
Pacific  and  it  is  taking  $1,000  where 
the  timber  grabbers  took  one,  Mr.  Minot 
declares.  Other  oil  lands  are  withdrawn 
from  men  of  moderate  means  by  a 
beneficent  but  impotent  administra- 
tion. 

Thomas  Sumner  Minot  was  born  Au- 
gust IS,  1862,  in  Brunswick,  Maine, 
son  of  Alexander  Baker  Minot  and 
Mary  (Ramsdell)  Minot.  His  father's 
line  runs  back  to  Elder  George  Minot, 
who  settled  at  Salem,  Massachusetts, 
May  30,  1630.  Elder  George  Minot  was 
the  son  of  Thomas  Minot,  Esq.,  Secre- 
tary to  the  Abbot  of  Walden,  Essex, 
England. 

After  completing  his  education  in 
England  Mr.  Minot  returned  and  spent 
three  years  studying  law  with  Hon. 
John  A.  Gray  and  General  J.  M.  Siglin 
at  Marshfleld,  Oregon,  and  was  admitted 
to  the  bar  at  Salem,  Oregon,  in  1.896 
November  12,  1902,  he  was  admitted 
before  the  U.  S.  District  and  Circuit 
Courts.  He  removed  to  San  Francisco 
in  February,  1901,  and  in  July  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  bar  of  this  State;  Septem- 
ber 10,  1909,  to  U.  S.  District  and  Cir- 
cuit Courts  of  Southern  California,  and 
October  6,  1909,  to  U.  S.  Circuit  Court 
of  Appeals. 


299 


J.  R.  MOLONY 


ORGANIZATION  undoubtedly  has 
more  to  do  with  the  success  of  a 
venture  in  which  several  hands 
and  minds  are  needed  to  carry  on 
the  work,  than  any  other  one  factor. 
This  is  coming  to  be  recognized  more 
and  more  as  the  years  of  the  twentieth 
century  slip  by.  Young 
men,  active  and  intel- 
ligent, with  their  new 
ideas  of  system  and  ef- 
ficiency, are  every- 
where  superseding  the 
older  ones  who  have 
allo./ed  themselves  to 
run  along  in  the  pro- 
verbial  rut. 

When  J.  R.  Molony 
became  Weste  r^ 
branch  manager  for 
the  Aetna  Life  Insur- 
ance Company  at  San 
Francisco  the  business 
was  practically  in  its 
infancy,  although  the 
office  had  been  estab- 
lished eight  years.  The 
company  stood  in 
seventh  place  in  vol- 
ume of  business  in  this 
territory.  B  y  reason 
of  his  organization 
methods  Mr.  Molony 
put  his  company  into 
first  place  three  years 
later,  in  1913,  and  the 
Aetna  has  since  been 
doing  the  largest  cas- 
ualty business  in  this  territory.  Since 
1910  Mr.  Molony  has  increased  the 
business  just  an  even  thousand  per 
cent. 

Mr.  Molony  is  a  native  of  Humboldt, 
Nebraska.  He  was  born  September  25, 
1881,  son  of  R.  S.  Molony,  an  attorney 
at  law,  and  Katherine  (tingles)  Molony. 
His  paternal  ancestors  were  of  the 
Knickerbockers  of  New  York  and  his 
mother's  people  were  prominent  in  Vir- 
ginia. 

Following  his  graduation  in  1899  from 
the  Humboldt,  Nebraska,  High  School, 
Mr.  Molony  entered  the  University  of 
Nebraska.  He  spent  six  years  in  the 
law  and  academic  departments  but  did 
not  take  either  degree,  as  circumstances 
made  it  necessary  for  him  to  leave 
school.  He  became  connected  with  the 
Lincoln  Star,  and  for  several  months 
filled  a  position  in  its  circulation  de- 
partment. 

Mr.  Molony's  introduction  to  the  in- 
surance business  came  in  1905,  when  he 
went  to  St.  Paul  and  became  a  solicitor 
for  the  Employers'  Liability  Assurance 
Corporation  of  London.  After  about  a 
year  he  was  placed  in  the  claims  de- 
partment as  an  adjuster,  but  after  a 
few  months  was  made  superintendent 
of  agencies.  Nine  months  more  saw 
him  in  charge  of  the  Minneapolis  office 
as  district  manager,  where  he  remained 
two    years. 

In  the  spring  of  1909  Mr.  Molony  ac- 
cepted a  better  place  with  the  Aetna 
Life  Insurance  Company  at  Hartford, 
Connecticut.     He  was  executive  special 


agent  and  his  work  was  largely  of  a 
general  agency  organization  nature  in 
the  accident  and  liability  department. 
Coming  to  San  Francisco  April  1,  1910, 
to  fill  the  vacancy  caused  by  the  resigna- 
ation  of  the  Western  brancii  manager, 
he  has  remained  liere  ever  since.  His 
territory  embraces 
California,  Nevada, 
Arizona  and  the  Ha- 
waiian   Islands. 

Tlie  reason  for  Mr. 
M  o  1  o  n  y's  gratifying 
success  in  his  new  field 
is  that  he  has  applied 
Eastern  intensive  cul- 
t  i  V  a  t  i  o  n  methods 
through  a  young"  and 
aggressive  organiza- 
tion built  up  from  raw 
and  green  material.  He 
is  a  strong  champion 
of  the  college-trained 
man  and  his  present 
organization  has  a  col- 
lege man  at  the  head 
of  every  department. 
Nearly  all  of  these  men 
are  under  thirty  years 
of  age.  In  his  office  he 
has,  in  addition  to  the 
Aetna  Life  Insurance 
Company's  accident 
and  lial)ility  depart- 
ment, the  Aetna  Acci- 
dent &  Liability  Com- 
pany and  the  Automo- 
b  i  1  e  Insurance  C  o  m- 
pany  of  Hartford,  both  subsidiaries  of 
tlie  Aetna  Life. 

Ever  since  he  came  to  San  Francisco 
Mr.  Molony  has  been  actively  engaged 
in  organizing  all  the  casualty  under- 
writing companies  doing  business  here 
into  the  Casualty  Underwriters'  Asso- 
ciation, which  was  formed  in  1911.  He 
has  been  chairman  of  all  its  committees 
on  organization  and  legislation,  and  as 
such  has  helped  bring  about  a  general 
co-operation  to  meet  new  problems 
growing  out  of  the  employers'  liability 
and    workman's     compensation    laws. 

In  1913  Mr.  Molony  initiated  the  op- 
position to  the  Boynton  Act  before  the 
California  Legislature  by  tlie  employers 
and  property  owners  of  the  State  and 
Chambers  of  Commerce.  The  fight  was 
admittedly  tlie  hardest  ever  made  on 
a  bill  at  Sacramento;  some  300  amend- 
ments were  added,  and  this  was  the 
only  thing  that  gave  California  fair 
liability  rates. 

Although  his  forbears  for  seven  gen- 
erations back  were  in  politics,  Mr.  Mo- 
lony finds  no  time  for  such  activities 
except  in  a  way  that  affects  his  busi- 
ness. His  social  activities  also  are  lim- 
ited to  membership  in  the  Boliemian 
Club  and  in  the  Alpha  Tau  Omega  and 
Theta  Nu  Epsilon  fraternities.  He  is 
unmarried. 

Mr.  Molony  believes  that  a  man,  to 
succeed,  must  choose  his  field  and  then 
devote  himself  wholly  to  advancing 
himself  in  this  sphere.  And  the  fact 
that  he  has  followed  his  own  belief  ex- 
plains his  rapid  progress. 


300 


p.  J.  MORAN 


EVERYTHING  that  has  come  to 
P.  J.  Moran,  Salt  Lake  City  capi- 
talist and  inJustiial  promoter, 
lias  been  the  reward  of  stern,  hon- 
est, unremitting  effort.  Riches  have  not 
been  handed  him.  His  career  lie  has 
carved  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow — and 
he   has   carved   it   well. 

P.  J.  Moran  did  not 
come  to  the  great  West 
in  the  days  known  as 
"pioneer";  yet  he  has 
made  himself  a  pioneer 
in  tlie  true  sense  of  tlie 
w  o  r  d — for  he  started 
out  as  a  leader  and  he 
has  remained  such  ever 
since. 

When  he  was  but 
seven  years  'old  Mr. 
Moran  "was  left  father- 
less. He  was  born  in 
Yorkshire,  England, 
January  23,  1S64,  the 
son  of  Laurence  Mo- 
ran of  County  Mayo. 
Ireland,  and  Bridget 
(Durkin)  Moran  of 
County  Sligo,  Ireland. 
Ten  years  old  he  was, 
a  mere  child,  when  he 
started  to  seek  an  in- 
dependent living.  Of 
scliooling  lie  liad  but 
little.  H  *  s  education 
he  acquired  in  the 
workshop,  supplemented  later  by  in- 
dividual study  when  the  day's  work  was 
done. 

Bidding  his  birthplace  good-bye  when 
he  was  fourteen  years  old  Mr.  Moran 
crossed  the  Atlantic  and  in  April,  1878, 
landed  in  Baltimore,  where  he  spent 
four  months.  He  then  went  to  Cincin- 
nati, where  he  became  apprentice  to  a 
steam-fitter,  mastering  his  trade  and 
working  at  it  in  Chicago  as  a  journey- 
man until  1887.  Removing  to  Omaha, 
he  remained  there  several  months  and 
then  came  still  further  westward  to 
Salt  Lake  City,  where  he  has  since 
lived  and  prospered. 

Mr.  Moran  worked  about  two  years 
at  his  trade  in  Salt  Lake  City,  then 
started  in  as  a  steam  heating  and  ven- 
tilating contractor.  He  furnished  and 
installed  most  of  the  heating  plants  in 
the  city's  public  schools  as  well  as 
those  in  the  State  University  at  Salt 
Lake  City  and  in  the  State  Agricultural 
College  atLogan.  He  also  fitted  a  number 
of  office  buildings,  residences,  churches 
and    schools    in    various    parts    of   Utah. 

As  he  went  along  he  enlarged  his 
field.  In  1000  Salt  Lake  City  awarded 
him  the  contract  for  the  installation  of 
a  new  and  modern  waterworks  costing 
several  million  dollars.  One  part  of 
the  work  in  particular,  the  Big  Cotton- 
Wood  conduit,  ten  miles  long,  has  since 
been  pronounced  one  of  the  finest  of 
its  kind  in  the  United   States. 

In  1903  Mr.  Moran  branched  out  again 


and  became  a  paving  contractor.  His 
company  has  laid  many  miles  of  asphalt 
on  the  streets  of  Salt  Lake  City,  Ogden 
and  other  cities  of  tlie  AVest  and  Middle 
West.  Hundreds  of  men  are  given  em- 
ployment at  the  INIoran  asphalt  plant, 
one  of  the  largest  in  tlie  country. 

In  concrete  construc- 
tion he  has  excelled. 
He  put  in  tlie  masonry 
for  the  American 
Smelting  and  Refining 
C  o  m  p  a  n  y's  plant  at 
Garfield,  Utah,  and  also 
built  tlie  power  plant 
of  the  Utah  Light  and 
Railway  Company  i  n 
Weber  Canyon.  In  the 
past  twelve  or  fifteen 
years  he  has  built 
practically  all  the  en- 
largements  to  Salt 
Lake's  water  supply 
system.  He  constructed 
the  immense  water 
conduit  leading  from 
City  Creek  Canyon,  as 
well  as  the  irrigation 
dam  of  the  Pacific  Rec- 
lamation   Company    by 

which   the  water   of 

-'%-^.  MB        Bishop    Creek,    near 

Wells,  Nevada,  has 
been  conserved  and  a 
vast  acreage  about  the 
new  town  of  Metropo- 
lis has  been  made  to  blossom. 

One  of  Mr.  Moran's  greatest  enter- 
prises of  recent  years  was  his  purchase, 
as  head  of  a  syndicate,  of  the  Utah 
Portland  Cement  Company,  of  whicli  he 
is  president  and  controlling  stock- 
holder. The  corporation's  plant  in  Par- 
ley's Canyon  near  Salt  Lake  City  is  one 
of  the  largest  in  America,  and  supplies 
a  market  in  which  cement  formerly  was 
scarce. 

It  would  require  pages  to  enumerate 
all  of  Mr.  Moran's  successful  industrial 
enterprises.  He  organized  and  incorpo- 
rated the  Federal  Coal  Company  of 
Utah,  of  whicli  he  is  vice-president  and 
general  manager;  he  is  director  of  sev- 
eral realty  concerns  that  handle  his 
vast  land  holdings;  he  is  director  and 
one  of  the  incorporators  of  the  National 
Copper  Bank  of  Salt  Lake  City;  he  is 
president,  general  manager  and  sole 
owner  of  the  P.  J.  Moran  Contracting 
Company,  his  original  concern;  and  is 
a  director  of  the  Keith-O'Brien  Com- 
pany, which  operates  Salt  Lake  City's 
largest  department  store,  in  addition 
to  his  presidency  of  the  Portland  Ce- 
ment Company  of  Utah. 

They  like  P.  J.  Moran  in  Utah.  Every 
year  there  is  set  aside  a  "Moran  Day," 
when  his  thousands  of  employes  take 
their  wives  and  children  and  friends 
for  a  picnic  and  outing.  And  by  this 
they  give  him  the  strongest  testimonial 
for  honesty  and  right  dealing  that  any 
man  can  receive. 


301 


PAUL   CONRAD   MORF 


W 


thtit 


HEN  Paul  Conrad  Morf  left  the 
home  of  his  birth  in  Germany 
at  the  ag'e  of  sixteen  to  see  tlie 
world,  his  relatives  assorted 
he    would    soon    be    back.      Cut    he 


d  return  except 
found    his   way 


kept  going-  and  never  d 
for  a  short  visit.  lie 
to  California.  He  is  a 
Calilornian. 

That  youthful  de- 
parture from  the  Fa- 
therland was  not  at  all 
romantic.  He  did  not 
run  away,  nor  ship  be- 
fore the  mast,  nor  come 
west  aching  to  kill  In- 
dians. He  departed  so- 
berly, with  full  and 
formal  leavetaking 
and  money  in  his  pock- 
et. Then  he  crossed 
the  Atlantic  and  the 
American  continent 
and  finally  reached  the 
ranch  of  an  aunt  in 
Calaveras  County. 

The  Calaveras  a  d- 
vent  -was  the  real  be- 
ginning of  his  career, 
for  lie  studied  law  in 
that  mountainous 
county  and  has  ad- 
hered to  the  legal  vo- 
cation ever  since.  H3 
has  climbed  until  re- 
c  e  n  1 1  y  he  was  made 
counsel  for  the  United 
Railroads  of  San  Fran- 
cisco, and  still  more  recently  was  ap- 
pointed city  attorney  of  Oakland,  where 
his    home    has    been    for    several    years. 

Morf  was  born  in  Esslingen,  Wurtem- 
berg,  Germany,  April  2,  18G9.  He  is  the 
son  of  Emil  Morf,  a  merchant,  and 
Pauline  Morf,  whose  forefathers  in- 
cluded several  burgomasters  in  her 
native  city. 

Paul  Morf  went  through  the  usual 
German  elementary  school  course  and 
then  entered  the  Esslingen  Lyceum, 
where  training  is  begun  for  profes- 
sional careers.  At  the  age  of  sixteen 
he  completed  his  course  and  was  ready 
to  enter  a  university.  But  he'  did  not 
enter  a  university.  He  passed  the 
Statue  of  Liberty  and  entered  California. 

After  a  few  health-giving  years  at 
his  aunt's  ranch,  Morf  became  compe- 
tent in  the  English  language  and  re- 
newed his  early  desire  to  study  the  law. 
He  already  knew  French  and  Latin  and 
Greek  and  some  Hebrew,  but  he  cannily 
waited  until  he  could  gain  a  fair  com- 
mand of  English.  With  this  acquired, 
he  entered  the  law  office  of  Judge  Ira 
Hill  Reed  at  San  Andreas,  going  through 
all  that  neophytes  in  the  law  usually 
endure. 

This  was  in  1885,  when  the  turljulent 
pioneer  days  w^ere  just  beginning  to 
wane.  Then  he  was  offered  a  chance 
of  going  to  the  law  office  of  F.  W. 
Street  in  Tuolumne  County,  where  he 
completed  his  studies.  He  was  admitted 
to  practice  b.v  the  Tuolumne  County 
Superior  Court  and,  in  May,  1890,  by 
the    California    Supreme    Court. 


Morf  then  went  back  to  San  Andreas 
and  hung  out  his  sign.  This  was  in 
1889.  There  was  law  in  San  Andreas, 
but  also  some  lawlessness,  and  the 
young  attorney  was  kept  fairly  busy. 
His  first  three  cases  were  murder  cases. 
In  1893  Morf  went  to  Stockton  and  be- 
came associated  with 
former  Congressman  J. 
A.  Louttit  in  the  prac- 
tice of  his  p  r  o  f  e  s  - 
sion. 

INIorf,  in  1899,  went 
to  Europe  for  a  visit. 
Returning  a  year  later 
he  found  an  opening 
in  New  York  City  and 
practiced  law  there 
until  1008,  when  he 
returned  to  California, 
taking  up  his  resi- 
dence in  Oakland  and 
practicing  in  San 
Francisco  with  Frank 
Solinsky.  His  work 
soon  attracted  the  at- 
tention of  officials  of 
the  United  Railroads 
of  San  Francisco  and 
he  was  invited  to  join 
that  company's  legal 
staff,  meanwhile  con- 
tinuing his  private 
work.  Then,  last  July, 
when  the  Davie  admin- 
istration took  charge 
of  Oakland's  affairs, 
l\Torf  was  named  city 
attornej\  a  position  which  he  now 
holds. 

]\Ir.  Morf  has  always  taken  an  active 
interest  in  political  affairs,  although 
the  present  is  his  first  public  office.  He 
has  been  chairman  of  the  Republican 
County  Central  Committee  in  Calaveras, 
chief  clerk  of  the  State  Senate's  judi- 
ciary committee  in  1803,  ch.airman  of  the 
Calaveras  delegation  to  the  Republican 
State  Convention  in  1894,  and  an  ac- 
tive member  of  the  Alameda  County 
Republican  Central  Committee  during 
the  strenuous  1914  campaign. 

Perhaps  IMorf's  most  notable  achieve- 
ment of  recent  years  was  his  drafting 
of  the  Public  Utilities  District  bill, 
which  passed  the  recent  Legislature  and 
revolutionized  the  handling  of  water 
district    matters   in   California. 

A  portion  of  the  residents  of  Alameda 
County  desired  to  form  a  water  dis- 
trict in  Autumn,  1914,  but  the  project 
failed  of  passage  because  the  voters 
showed  their  fear  that  the  then  exist- 
ing State  statute  was  so  worded  as  to 
invite  political  favoritism  in  the  ad- 
ministrntion  of  a  water  district. 

The  citizens  clamored  for  a  new  law. 
Morf  was  picked  to  draft  it.  When 
completed,  his  work  was  discussed  pro 
and  con  throughout  the  State,  but  in  the 
end  it  was  successfully  passed  before 
the  Legislature,  thus  giving  the  com- 
monwealtli  a  ne^v  and  improved  metliod 
of  controlling  water  districts  and  bring- 
ing Morf  into  prominence  as  the  "fa- 
ther of  the  Public  Utilities  District 
bill." 


302 


LEON  E.  MORRIS 


THERE  are  at  least  three  essentials 
to  any  man's  success — i  n  t  e  1  1  i  - 
gence,  perseverance,  speed.  "With 
these  three  things  as  attributes, 
and  with  the  determination  tliat  goes 
with  tliem,  no  problem  is  too  great  nor 
no  obstacle  too  big.  The  wide-awake 
and  aggressive  indi- 
vidual will  be  found, 
when  the  smoke  of 
battle  clears  away,  to 
have  won  the  point  for 
which  he  set  out. 

Leon  E.  Morris,  San 
Francisco  attorney  at 
law,  has  just  such  a 
character;  and  by 
reason  of  it  he  has 
made  for  himself  in  the 
comparatively  few 
years  he  has  been  prac- 
ticing a  record  of  ac- 
complishment that 
many  an  older  man  in 
h  i  s  profession  might 
well  envy. 

Born  February  24, 
1SS4,  in  San  Francisco, 
Mr.  Morris  is  the  son 
of  Henry  E.  Morris  and 
Henrietta  (Levy) 
Morris.  His' father  has 
been  in  the  d  r  a  y  i  n  g 
business  in  this  city 
since  1S76  and  is  well 
known  and  liked  in  San 
Francisco  business  circles.  The  younger 
Mr.  Morris,  after  attending  the  public 
schools,  was  graduated  from  Lowell 
High  School  in  1901  and  the  same  year 
entered  the  University  of  California. 
He  received  his  degree  of  A.  B.  in  1905 
from  the  University,  and  his  LL.  B.  in 
1907  from  Hastings  College  of  the  Law. 

The  beginning  of  Mr.  Morris'  law 
practice  really  dates  from  1905,  the 
year  he  entered  Hastings  College,  for 
it  was  then  he  entered  the  law  offices 
of  Bishop  &  Hoefler  as  clerk  and  all- 
around  handy  man.  He  was  formally 
admitted  to  the  bar  May  1,  1907.  Mean- 
while, in  1906,  Thomas  B.  Bishop  had 
passed  away,  and  on  March  1,  1909,  Mr. 
Morris  became  a  partner  in  a  new  law 
firm  known  as  Hoefler,  Cook,  Harwood 
&  Morris.  When,  on  August  1,  1913, 
this  association  was  dissolved  and  the 
new  firm  of  Hoefler  &  Morris  was  or- 
ganized, Mr.  Morris  became  its  mana- 
ger. This  in  turn  was  dissolved  January 
1,  1915,  since  which  time  Mr.  Morris 
has  been  practicing  alone,  as  the  head 
of  a  highly  efficient  personal  organ- 
ization. 

It  is  not  an  abuse  o^  the  superlative 
to  say  that  Mr.  Morris  has  made  a 
phenomenal  record  for  a  man  of  his 
years.  Confining  himself  to  a  general 
civil  law  practice  he  is  general  counsel 
for  a  number  of  corporations  and 
holds  officerships  or  directorships  in 
a  score  or  more  others.  Included 
among  these  are  the  Brunswick-Balke- 
Collender    Company    of    California,    the 


Steiger  Terra  Cotta  and  Pottery  Works, 
the  Howard  Cattle  Company  and  other 
interests  of  the  late  Edward  W.  Howard 
and  of  the  Whitwells  of  Boston. 

One  of  his  recent  coups,  in  which  the 
necessity  for  speed  was  paramount,  was 
the  mandamus  proceedings,  in  1914, 
against  the  trustees  of 
the  City  of  Hanford. 
The  removal  by  the 
trustees  of  an  i  n  i  t  i  - 
ative  measure  from  the 
ballot  at  the  last  min- 
ute was  involved.  Mr. 
Morris  had  but  three 
hours  to  frame  p  r  o  - 
ceedings  that  covered 
40  typewritten  pages. 
But  he  accomplished 
it,  rushed  the  case  to 
CDuit  and  succeeded  in 
establishing  the  point 
of  law  that  city  trus- 
t  e  e  s  cannot  halt  the 
voting  on  an  initiative 
measure  as  it  is  a 
matter  having  to  do 
with  the  State  consti- 
tution. Incidentally,  in 
this  instance,  the  initi- 
ative proposition  won. 
In  a  recall  against 
two  trustees  of  Vallejo 
in  1914,  Mr.  Morris  won 
another  notable  v  i  c - 
tory.  The  trustees  re- 
fused to  canvass  a  vote  in  which  it  ap- 
peared that  at  least  one  of  them  had 
been  ousted  from  office.  The  appellate 
court  in  Sacramento  was  appealed  to  for 
an  alternative  writ  of  mandate  to  com- 
pel the  trustees  to  make  the  canvass, 
and  from  there  the  case  was  taken  to 
the  Supreme  Court.  Mr.  Morris  disclosed 
the  fact  that  the  two  "reform"  candi- 
dates had  run  for  the  office  of  trustee 
indiscriminately  instead  of  specifying 
which  of  the  terms,  the  long  or  the 
short,  each  sought.  In  winning  his 
case,  Mr.  Morris  caused  it  to  be  estab- 
lished that  two  terms  comprise  two 
offices  instead  of  one,  and  that  there 
should  have  been  two  distinct  recall 
elections. 

The  success  of  Mr.  Morris'  legal  career 
has  largely  been  made  possible  by  the 
very  efficient  office  organization  he 
maintains.  He  has  expended  not  a  little 
effort  in  building  up  this  organization, 
until  today  its  superior  cannot  be  found 
in  San  Francisco. 

Politically,  Mr.  Morris  is  a  Republi- 
can, though  he  is  held  by  no  narrow 
party  ties,  nor  has  he  ever  sought  or 
held  office.  He  belongs  to  the  LTnion 
League,  San  Francisco  Commercial  and 
Merchants'  Exchange  Clubs,  to  Islam 
Temple  of  Shriners  and  to  San  Fran- 
cisco bodies  of  the  Scottish  Rite.  He 
was  married  August  27,  1912,  in  San 
Francisco  to  Elede  Prince  and  is  the 
father  of  one  daughter,  Eleonor,  aged 
2  years. 


303 


LOUIS   CHRISTIAN  MULLGARDT 


ttT     OUIS   CHRISTIAN    MULLGARDT 

I        is   emphatically   an    original   de- 

M  J  signer.       The     freshness    of    his 

vision  and  the  novelty  of  many  of 

his  technical  expedients  will  be  manifest 

to  the  most  superficial  observer,  while  at 

the  same  time  it  is  equally  obvious  that 

his     innovations     have 

not    been    conceived   in 

any   perversity   of 

spirit.      He    is    a    man 

who  goes  his  own  way, 

because    he    has    to    go 

his  own  way." 

This,  in  part,  is  what 
Herbert  D.  Croly, 
author  and  editor, 
wrote  of  Mr.  Mullgardt 
after  he  had  made  a 
critical  study  of  his 
work  several  years 
ago.  Mr.  Croly's  analy- 
sis accounts  for  the 
originality  and  beauty 
of  Mr.  Mullgardt's 
"Court  of  the  Ages" 
and  other  structures 
designed  by  him  at  the 
Panama-Pacific  Inter- 
national Exposition. 
The  Court  of  Ages  has 
commanded  such  uni- 
versal expressions  of 
approval  by  architec- 
tural critics  and  public  alike  in  respect 
to  distinctive  composition,  style  and  in- 
finite detail,  as  to  insure  its  permanency 
in  the  annals  of  architecture. 

The  general  theme  of  the  Court  of 
the  Ages  is  based  on  the  world's 
geological  and  progressional  develop- 
ment depicted  in  architecture,  sculpture 
and  mural  paintings.  It  is  an  epitome 
of  the  world's  progress. 

The  architectural  style  of  the  court 
is  characteristically  Gothic  without 
bearing  any  traceable  evidence  of 
having  been  directly  influenced  by  any 
other  similar  preceding  style.  It  is  a 
distinctive  evolution  in  architectural 
design,  self-evidently  based  on  a  colos- 
sal historical  theme  and  in  style  tradi- 
tionally  ecclesiastic. 

The  preliminary  studies,  working 
drawings  and  every  individual  detail 
of  ornament  and  moulding  were  pro- 
duced by  the  architect  himself,  in- 
cluding final  life-size  clay  models  for 
each   architectural    detail. 

He  was  responsible  for  the  selection 
of  Frank  Brangwyn,  the  famous  London 
artist  who  painted  the  eight  notable 
murals  symbolizing  Earth,  Air,  Fire 
and  Water,  which  are  placed  in  the 
four  corners  of  the  cloister. 

The  work  of  Mr.  Mullgardt  consist- 
ently divulges  its  creator's  wide  versa- 
tility. It  cannot  be  classified  as 
belonging  to  any  previous  architec- 
tural    style,     but     there     is     something 


about  it,  perhaps  its  very  quality,  that 
betrays   its  authorship 


This 
work  in 
For  the 
designed 
original 


proven    by    Mr.    Mullgardt's 
the    various    exhibit    palaces. 
W.     P.     Fuller    Company     he 
a    Moorish     temple     of    most 
composition      and      exquisite 
detail.      For  the  Union 
Oil    Company    of    Cali- 
fornia exhibit   he  used 
as   a   theme   four   huge 
dinosauria  symbolizing 
the    origin    of    the    oil 
industry,     geologically 
speaking.      His    design 
for  the  Transvaal  gold 
display  consisted  of  an 
immense    gold    obelisk 
showing   cubically   the 
world's   annual   output 
of  gold.     Two  balls  on 
adjoining  pedestals 

terminating  an  exedra 
represented  the  Trans- 
vaal output  as  com- 
pared to  that  of  the 
rest  of  the  world.  The 
design  was  strikingly 
Egyptian.  In  contrast 
to  all  this  was  his 
"Home  of  Redwood" 
in  the  South  Gardens, 
designed  for  the  red- 
w  o  o  d  industries  o  f 
Sonoma,  Mendocino  and  Humboldt 
Counties. 

Mr.  Mullgardt  came  from  London  to 
San  Francisco  in  1905.  He  is  a  native  of 
Missouri.  His  earlier  years  were  spent 
in  St.  Louis,  where  he  began  the  study 
of  architecture.  Subsequently  he  con- 
tinued his  studies  in  Boston  and  at 
Harvard.  Following  this  he  went  to 
Chicago,  where  he  first  became  en- 
gaged as  designer  of  important  work. 
In  1893  Mr.  Mullgardt  entered  private 
practice  in  St.  Louis.  In  1895  he  made 
an  extended  trip  to  Europe  for  further 
study.  In  1902  he  was  commissioned 
to  go  to  Manchester,  England,  and  in 
1903  to  London,  to  execute  important 
work  there  and  in  Scotland.  The  results 
of  his  labors  for  the  next  two  years 
before  coming  to  San  Francisco,  could 
they  be  noted  here  in  detail,  would  be 
most  complimentary  testimonials  of  his 
genius. 

To  his  accomplishments  as  an  archi- 
tect and  sculptor  should  be  added  those 
of  artist  and  writer,  he  having  con- 
tributed liberally  to  magazines,  par- 
ticularly those  relating  to  architecture. 
Mr.  Mullgardt  is  president  of  the 
California  Society  of  Etchers,  vice- 
president  of  the  San  Francisco  Society 
of  Artists,  director  of  the  San  Francisco 
Art  Association,  ex-president  of  the 
San  Francisco  Society  of  Architects  and 
member  of  the  International  Fine  Arts 
Jury  of  Award  of  the  Panama-Pacific 
International   Exposition. 


304 


I 


C.  p.  MURDOCK 


THIS  is  indeed  the  young-  man's 
age.  Now,  perliaps  more  than 
ever  before,  is  tliere  opportunity 
for  tlie  aspiring-  young  man  to 
advance  himself  to  a  position  of  trust 
and  responsibility  and  compel  recog- 
nition of  his  assets.  Time  was  when 
the  youthful  were 
frowned  upon  by  their 
elders;  a  man  was 
supposed  to  live  sev- 
eral decades  before  he 
became  really  "set- 
tled." But  the  world 
moves  and  to  youth  is 
left  the  task  of  sup- 
plying most  of  the 
energy — because  youth 
is  prone  to  accept  the 
element    of    risk. 

C.  P.  Murdock,  vice- 
president  and  general 
manager  of  the  Realty 
Syndicate  of  Oakland 
and  officer  or  director 
in  a  number  of  Cali- 
fornia corporations,  is 
still  a  young  man.  But 
for  a  dozen  years  or 
more  he  has  been 
identified  with  big 
projects  in  positions 
calling  for  executive 
ability  and  prompt  ac- 
tion. He  is  typical  of  the  progressive 
young  man  of  the  day. 

Mr.  Murdock  is  a  native  of  San  Fran- 
cisco. He  was  born  August  29,  1881, 
the  son  of  George  H.  Murdock,  head 
of  the  real  estate  and  insurance  firm 
of  George  H.  Murdock  &  Son,  and 
Susan  L.  (Fuller)  Murdock.  After  at- 
tending the  public  schools  of  Alameda, 
in  1895  he  entered  the  California  School 
of  Mechanical  Arts  in  San  Francisco. 
The  institution  was  founded  by  James 
Lick  and  Mr.  Murdock's  class  was  the 
second  to  attend  there. 

In  1898  Mr.  Murdock  entered  his 
father's  real  estate  and  insurance  bus- 
iness. He  remained  a  partner  in  the  firm 
until    1907.      The   San    Francisco    fire    of 

1906  caused  the  concern  to  remove  to 
Oakland,  but  it  moved  back  to  the  city 
as  soon  as  possible  and  for  a  time 
maintained  offices  on  both  sides  of  the 
bay.      Mr.  Murdock  is  still  interested  in  a 

financial  way  with  his  father  in  the  firm. 
An    opportunity    to    advance    came    in 

1907  when  Mr.  Murdock  associated 
himself  with  the  Great  Western  Power 
Company  as  assistant  to  the  superin- 
tendent in  the  construction  of  the  mon- 
ster power  plant  on  the  north  fork  of 
the  Feather  River.  He  was  closely 
associated  with  the  executive  side  of 
the  project  until  its  completion  in  1909. 

Still  larger  things  loomed  ahead.  In 
May,  1909,  he  became  assistant  sec- 
retary to  F.  M.  Smith,  the  "borax 
king,"  in  connection  with  all  the  vast 
Smith  holdings.  This  gave  him  valua- 
ble  experience   in    the   realm   of  capital 


and  he  made  the  most  of  it.  The  direct 
result  was  that  in  January,  1913,  when 
Nat  M.  Crossley  resigned  from  the 
managership  of  the  Realty  Syndicate, 
a  Smith  property,  Mr.  Murdock  was 
chosen  for  the  vacant  position.  Ever 
since  he  has  assumed  the  details  of 
the  concern's  business. 
Just  what  this 
means  may  be  under- 
stood from  the  fact 
that  the  Realty  Syndi- 
cate is  the  largest 
owner  of  land  in  Ala- 
meda County.  It  con- 
trols the  San  Francis- 
co-Oakland Terminal 
Railways;  owns  the 
Syndicate  building  in 
Oakland,  valued  at 
$1,500,000,  and  also 
owns  several  million 
dollars  worth  of  sub- 
divided property,  in- 
cluding 5,000  acres 
contiguous  to  the 
present  developed  por- 
tions of  Berkeley  and 
Oakland.  Some  of  the 
most  fashionable  and 
popular  of  the  trans- 
bay  residential  sec- 
tions it  has  put  on  the 
market. 
Mr.  Murdock  is  vice-president  and 
general  manager  of  the  Realty  Syn- 
dicate and  also  of  the  Realty  Syn- 
dicate Company,  the  latter  a  concern 
growing  out  of  the  reorganization 
of  the  original  corporation  several 
months  ago.  In  several  other  Smith 
holdings  he  has  positions  also.  He 
is  president  of  the  Idora  Park  Com- 
pany, owned  by  the  Realty  Syndi- 
cate Company;  vice-president  of  the 
Twelfth  Street  Realty  Company  of 
Oakland;  and  director  of  the  West  End 
Consolidated  Mining  Company  with 
properties  at  Tonopah,  Nevada,  and  of 
the   Sorosis   Fruit  Company. 

Mr.  Murdock  has  long  been  promi- 
nent in  tennis  circles  and  is  well  known 
up  and  down  the  Pacific  Coast  for  his 
playing.  He  has  won  several  cham- 
pionships and  still  plays  tennis  as  a 
recreation   from   business. 

Although  he  is  deeply  interested  in 
the  civic  advancement  of  Oakland  and 
the  East  Bay  community  Mr.  Murdock 
is  not  one  of  those  that  spend  their 
time  talking,  leaving  very  little  time 
for  really  doing  things.  Rather,  he  re- 
mains in  the  background,  no  less  a 
"booster"  but  accomplishing  his  public 
work  quietly  and  without  ostentation. 
He  is  a  member  of  the  Oakland  Com- 
mercial Club  as  well  as  the  Athenian 
Club  and  the  Sequoia  Country  Club. 
He  is  afl^liated  with  no  fraternal  or- 
ganizations. 

Mr.  Murdock  was  married  in  March, 
1912,  in  Alameda  to  Catherine  War- 
field  Wells.  The  couple  have  one  son, 
C.    P.    Murdock,   Jr. 


305 


THOMAS  R.  MURPHY 


of    blue-clad 


IT    IS    not    always — not    even    often — 
that  a  man  lives  to  see  his  greatest 
ambition  realized.     That  Thomas  11- 
Murphy    has    done    so    makes    him    a 
man  in  whose  career  there  is  a  general 
interest. 

The  ambition  of  Thomas  R.  Murphy, 
Chief  Engineer  of  the 
San  Francisco  Fire  De- 
partment, has  been  to 
make  that  department 
rank  with  the  very 
best  in  the  world.  He 
has  done  so,  in  point  of 
organization,  equip- 
ment  and  general  elTi- 
ciency,  and  in  some 
particulars  he  has 
made  it  the  peer  of 
them  all. 

San  Francisco  has  the 
only  central  fire  alarm 
station  of  its  kind  in 
the  world.  It  is  abso- 
lutely isolated — there- 
fore, absolutely  safe. 
Never  again  can  a  flre 
like  that  great  con- 
flagration of  April, 
1906,  cripple  the  de- 
partment by  destroy- 
ing the  very  center  of 
its  system.  Lot  every- 
thing else  go  up  in 
flames  and  Chief 
Murphy  will  still  have 
his  station  in  Jefferson 
Square  from  where  he 
can  marshal  his  force 
fighters. 

Chief  Murphy  only  recently  won  this 
new  and  isolated  central  station,  after 
a  struggle  before  the  Supervisors  last- 
ing three  years.  But  the  result  will 
be  worthy  of  the  effort,  for  when  his 
other  plans  for  strengthening  the  sys- 
tem have  been  carried  out  he  will  have 
caused  the  lowering  of  fire  insurance 
rates,  if  is  promised,  at  least  two  per 
cent. 

Born  in  San  Francisco  August  31, 
1870,  Murphy  entered  the  Fire  Depart- 
ment as  a  relief  driver  in  1892.  The 
late  lamented  Chief  Dennis  Sullivan  ap- 
pointed him  captain  of  Chemical  Fngine 
6  in  1897,  and  in  1905  he  was  again  pro- 
moted by  Chief  Sullivan,  this  time  to 
battalion  chief. 

The  disastrous  fire  of  1906,  which 
caused  the  death  of  Chief  Sullivan,  gave 
Murphy  his  opportunity  to  distinguish 
himself.  It  was  he  who  directed  the 
work  that  saved  the  only  block  left 
standing  within  the  burned  area  of  the 
city.  The  direct  result  of  this  coup  was 
the  recommendation  of  Murphy  for  pro- 
motion by  Acting  Secretary  of  the  Navy 
Newberry,  and  Murphy  was  appointed 
second  assistant  chief  engineer  under 
Chief  Shaughnessey.  In  1910,  upon  the 
retirement  of  Shaughnessey,  the  Board 
of  Fire  Commissioners  made  Murphy 
chief. 

"When  an  entire  city  endorses  a  public 
official's  administration,  it  means  that 
that  official  knows  his  business.  Chief 
Murphy  has  Vteen  endorsed,  unmistak- 
ably,   by    every    fire    insurance    interest 


of  San  Francisco,  by  every  newspaper, 
by  the  Civic  League  of  Improvement 
Clubs,  the  Downtown  Association  and 
by  dozens  of  other  commercial,  politi- 
cal and  civic  bodies.  And  the  reason 
is  not  diflicult  to  find. 

Chief  Murphy  has  injected  efficiency 
into  the  Fire  Depart- 
ment of  San  Francisco. 
When  he  became  chief 
engineer  the  only  mo- 
tor apparatus  the  de- 
partment was  provided 
with  was  the  chief's 
automobile.  Today 
nine  engine  companies 
are  completely  motor- 
ized, as  are  five  truck 
companies  and  three 
chemical  engine  com- 
panies; and  each  of 
eleven  battalion  chiefs 
and  two  assistant 
chiefs  have  automo- 
biles. In  order  to  have 
men  competent  to 
handle  this  motor  ap- 
paratus the  Chief 
started  a  school  of 
automobile  instruction 
at  the  Corporation 
Yard,  where  the  fire- 
men take  turns  attend- 
ing. 

Where  drills  once 
were  desultory,  they 
are  now  given  every 
day  in  the  year  except 
Sundays.  In  addition  to  the  regular 
weekly  company  drills  at  headquarters, 
where  the  men  familiarize  themselves 
with  tools  and  apparatus,  there  is  a  drill 
school  at  Seventeenth  and  Harrison 
streets,  where  new  and  old  members  of 
the  department  alike  are  given  instruc- 
tion in  their  turn,  each  one  attending 
aV)Out  four  days  a  month.  Here  they 
work  with  pompier  ladders,  extension 
ladders,  hose,  high  pressure  valves,  and 
in  actual  rescue  work  with  life  guns, 
life  lines  and  nets.  There  is  also  a  de- 
partment of  first-aid  instruction,  and 
eventually  the  "flying  squad"  wagon 
will  be  equipped  to  respond  to  any  first- 
aid  emergency.  In  addition,  each  fire- 
boat  has  six  two-hour  oxygen  helmets, 
with  two  each  for  the  truck  companies 
in  the  congested  district. 

During  Chief  Murphy's  regime  the 
city's  fire  alarm  system  has  been  in- 
creased more  than  twenty-five  per 
cent.  There  are  now  672  boxes,  and  the 
Chief  says  eventually  there  will  be 
1,050.  New  fire  houses  have  been  built 
and  more  are  contemplated  for  the  near 
future.  The  high-power  system  has 
been  extended  until  now  there  are  SS9 
high-power  water  hydrants  capable  of 
developing  335  pounds  pressure  to  the 
square  inch.  In  all  these  improvements!, 
economy  has  been  the  keynote  quite  as 
much  as  has  eflRciency. 

And  as  for  his  "human"  side.  Chief 
Murphy  has  collected  a  fund  of  $17,000 
with  which  he  will  perpetuate,  by  a 
monument  in  the  Civic  Center,  the  mem- 
ory of  his  stanch  friend,  the  late  Chief 
Sullivan. 


306 


MAJOR  GENERAL  ARTHUR  MURRAY,  U.   S.   A. 


NEARLY      any      normal      man      can 
make    something    of    himself    in 
this   world   with   the   proper   en- 
couragement.     It   is   the   worth- 
wliile   man  who  accomplishes   it   in   the 
face  of  disheartening-  opposition. 

When  Major  General  Arthur  Murray, 
Commander  of  the 
Western  Departinent 
and  Third  Division  of 
the  United  States 
Army,  started  on  his 
career,  he  met  a  n  y  - 
thing  but  assurance. 
His  ambition  was  to 
gain  entrance  to  West 
Point  in  a  competitive 
examination.  But  when 
he  announced  himself 
?s  a  competitor  to  the 
Congressman  of  his 
home  district.  Bowling 
Green,  Missouri,  he 
was  told  the  expense 
would  be  useless,  that 
his  lack  of  education 
made  it  impossible  for 
him  to  win. 

"I'll  stand  the  ex- 
pense," replied  the 
19-year-old  youth 
in  a  way  character- 
istic of  him.  "I  want 
to  take  the  chance, 
for  I'll  at  least  find 
out  how  much  the 
other  contestants 
know."  He  took  the 
chance.  Also,   he  won  the  appointment. 

Major  General  Murray  was  born  in 
Bowling  Green,  April  29,  1851.  He  was 
graduated  from  West  Point  in  1874  with 
second  honors  and  made  a  second  lieu- 
tenant of  artillery.  In  ISSO  he  captured 
first  honors  in  graduation  from  the 
Artillery  School  at  Port  Monroe,  Vir- 
ginia. There  followed  his  marriage  at 
Fort  Monroe  to  Sara  Wetmore  De 
Russy,  and  a  year  later  he  returned  to 
West  Point,  this  time  as  instructor — 
later  becoming  assistant  professor — in 
the  department  of  philosophy.  He  re- 
mained until  1886. 

Promoted  to  first  lieutenant  of  artil- 
lery, Murray  was  then  made  captain 
and  acting  judge  advocate  of  the  De- 
partment of  Missouri.  He  also  studied 
law,  which  in  1895  gained  for  him  ad- 
mittance to  the  bar  before  the  United 
States  Circuit  Court  at  St,  Louis.  Also, 
he  wrote  "A  Manual  for  Courts  Martial," 
published  privately  in  1887  but  in  1895 
revised  and  issued  by  the  War  Depart- 
ment. It  remains  today  the  sole  Army 
guide  in  minor  courts  martial. 

There  followed  transferences  and 
more  promotions.  In  1891  he  was  acting 
adjutant  general  of  the  Department  of 
Dakota.  In  1893  he  wrote  "Mathematics 
for  Artillery  Gunners,"  still  used  as  a 
text  book.  He  also  designed  the  artil- 
lery post  at  Fort  Hancock,  N.  J.,  arid, 
after  declining  a  commission  as  captain 
and  quartermaster,  went  to  Yale  as 
professor  of  military  science. 

In  December,  1908,  following  the  out- 


break of  the  Spanish-American  war, 
Murray  became  acting  judge  advocate 
for  the  First  Army  Corps  at  Matanzas, 
Cuba,  and  was  in  charge  of  civil  govern- 
iTient  affairs  of  the  provinces  of  Matan- 
zas and  Santa  Clara.  The  latter  part 
of  1899  he  spent  in  Washington,  in 
charge  of  all  legal 
matters  relating  to  the 
military  branch  of  the 
Army. 

A  s  Colonel  o  f  t  h  e 
43rd  Volunteer  Infan- 
try, in  1900  and  1901, 
Murray  was  active  in 
the  Philippines.  He 
was  governor  of  the 
islands  of  Samar  and 
Leyte,  and  then  com- 
mander of  the  First 
District,  Department 
o  f  t  h  e  Visayas.  His 
regiment  participated 
in  451  fights. 

Declining,  in  1901, 
another  advancement, 
Murray  was  given 
charge  of  the  School 
of  Submarine  Defense 
at  Fort  Totten,  N.  Y. 
H  i  s  development  o  f 
submarine  defense 
brought  him  appoint- 
in  e  n  t  as  lieutenant 
colonel,  October  1, 
1906,  and  on  the  same 
day  as  brigadier  gen- 
eral and  chief  of  artil- 
lery. Meanwhile  he  had  helped  design 
and  construct  the  land  fortifications  of 
the  United  States,  and  his  reward  came 
in  March,  1911,  when  President  Taft 
made  him  major  general,  which  brought 
about  his  present  command. 

After  all,  a  man's  success  is  measured 
by  what  those  closest  in  touch  with  him 
say  of  his  work.  Former  President 
Roosevelt,  speaking  of  General  Murray 
to  George  Griswold  Hill,  then  chief  of 
the  New  York  Tribune's  Washington 
bureau,  said: 

"Major  General  Murray  is,  in  my 
opinion,  not  only  one  of  the  ablest 
soldiers  in  the  Army  but  he  has  to  my 
knowledge  done  more  for  the  Army 
than  any  other  man  in  the  War  Depart- 
ment or  anywhere  else.  He  is  essential- 
ly a  man  who  does  things,  who  gets 
results." 

In  a  similar  vein  was  former  Presi- 
dent Taft's  characterization. 

"I  don't  know  but  I  ought  to  make 
Murray  a  major  general  in  order  that 
his  great  ability  may  be  exerted  for  the 
benefit  of  the  entire  military  establish- 
ment," said  Taft.  "I  am  a  little  dis- 
posed to  believe  he  has  too  much  force 
and  enterprise  to  be  confined  to  one 
branch  of  the  service." 

As  a  still  more  visible  testimonial 
Major  General  Murray,  who  reached  the 
retiring  age  in  April,  1915,  was  kept  on 
the  active  list,  by  a  special  order  unique 
in  Army  history,  until  the  close  of  the 
Panama-Pacific  Exposition,  December 
4,  1915. 


307 


HAMDEN  H.  NOBLE 


IT  is  to  such  men  as  Hamden  Holmes 
Noble — men  whose  integrity  and 
stamina  are  combined  with  a  pro- 
gressivism  that  keeps  tliem  really 
ahead  of  their  times — that  California 
owes  much  of  her  wonderful  growth 
and  prosperity  as  a  State.  He  is  one  of 
those  who  have  given 
the  very  best  that  was 
in  them  to  California; 
and  the  results  have 
been  far-reaching  and 
permanent. 

Posterity  will  re- 
member Mr.  Noble,  if 
for  nothing  else,  at 
least  for  liis  pinoeer 
work  in  the  converting 
of  electric  current  into 
heat  for  the  treatment 
of  iron  ores  in  smelt- 
ing. In  1906  he  organ- 
ized and  became  presi- 
dent of  the  Noble  Elec- 
tric Steel  Company,  a 
project  cliaracterized 
by  the  Journal  of  Elec- 
tricity in  its  columns 
as  "one  of  tlie  nerviest 
ever  fostered  in  Cali- 
fornia." It  opened  up 
a  new  era  in  the  mar- 
keting of  pigiron  produced  in  this  coun- 
try, for  until  tlie  new  system  was  in- 
troduced tlie  smelting  of  iron  ores  in 
the  United  States  was  considered  com- 
mercially unprofitable  owing  to  tlie  dif- 
ficulty in  obtaining  suitable  coking  coal. 

In  a  few  words  this  same  trade  jour- 
nal tells  of  the  struggle  to  perfect  Mr. 
Noble's  idea,  when  it  says:  "The  story 
of  the  development  of  this  smelter,  the 
heartbreaking  trials,  costly  delays,  un- 
foreseen misfortunes,  repeated  failures, 
always  bolstered  up  and  ready  to  go  at 
it  again  by  the  indomitable  courage  and 
unswerving  faith  of  these  men,  held  to- 
gether and  helped  and  reassured  through 
the  untiring  energy  of  their  leader  (Mr. 
Noble),  will  add  a  chapter  to  the  glo- 
rious history  of  California  which,  next 
to  the  satisfaction  of  the  success  that 
it  will  chronicle,  will  be  a  fitting  trib- 
ute to  the  genius  of  faith  and  daring." 

Mr.  Noble,  tlie  recipient  of  this  un- 
usual mark  of  esteem,  is  a  native  of 
Fairfield,  Maine.  He  was  born  August 
16,  1844,  the  son  of  James  Wellington 
Noble,  farmer  and  carriage  builder,  and 
Louisa  (Knox)  Noble.  The  younger  Mr. 
Noble  attended  the  public  schools  of 
his  birthplace  until  the  age  of  eighteen 
when — on  September  9,  1862 — he  was 
mustered    into    the   United    States   Army 


as  a  private  in  Company  B,  Twenty- 
first  Regiment  of  Maine  Infantry.  After 
serving  for  eigliteen  montlis  he  was 
lionorably  discliarged  on  account  of  ill- 
ness, and  came  to  California  in  October, 
1864,   to   regain   his   lost  vitality. 

Mr.  Noble's  first  business  experience 
was  as  a  clerk  in  the 
wholesale  paper  con- 
cern of  George  W. 
Clark.  After  five  years 
he  w^ent  to  Wliite  Pine, 
Nevada,  and  for  two 
years  engaged  in  min- 
i  n  g  and  luml)ering, 
after  w  li  i  c  h  he  re- 
turned to  San  Francis- 
co. Purchasing  a  seat 
on  the  San  Francisco 
Stock  Excliange  Mr. 
Noble  operated  on  the 
board  for  the  succeed- 
ing quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury, resigning  in  1895, 
after  an  unusually 
fruitful  career. 

The  Cypress  Lawn 
Cemetery  Association, 
of  w  h  i  c  li  he  remains 
vice-president  to  this 
day,  was  organized  by 
Mr.  Noble  in  1S92.  He 
also  formed  the  Cypress  Lawn  Improve- 
ment Company,  of  whicli  he  is  president. 
In  1900  he  organized  the  Northern  Cali- 
fornia Power  Company,  and  later  on  the 
Keswick  Electric  Power  Company, 
which  became  a  part  of  the  first  named 
concern  under  the  name  of  the  Northern 
California  Power  Company,  Consoli- 
dated. He  is  at  present  chairman  of 
the  board  of  directors  of  the  corpora- 
tion, whose  offices  are  in  San  Fran- 
cisco. 

The  plant  of  the  Noble  Electric  Steel 
Company,  that  project  which  has 
brought  forth  so  much  commendation 
from  the  business  and  mining  interests 
of  California,  is  located  on  the  north 
bank  of  the  Pitt  river  in  Shasta  County, 
on  the  Sacramento  Valley  &  Eastern 
Railway.  Immediately  back  of  the 
plant  is  a  veritable  mountain  of  mag- 
netite iron  ore  having  a  percentage  of 
seventy  in  metallic  iron.  The  success 
of  the  electrical  furnace  is  an  assured 
fact. 

Mr.  Noble  is  interested  in  several 
other  commercial  and  industrial  enter- 
prises in  addition  to  those  already 
touched  upon.  Among  these  is  the 
newly  formed  West  Coast-San  Fran- 
cisco Life  Insurance  Company,  of  which 
he  is  a  director. 


\ 


308 


WILLIAM  A.  NUNLIST 


ONE  can  find  almost  any  number  of 
lawyers  who  might  be  said  to 
liave  a  "business  mind,"  wlio  see 
everything-  from  a  business 
standpoint  only  and  weigli  its  feasi- 
bility on  such  scales  alone.  There  also 
is  any  number  of  lawyers  who  view 
■  every  proposition  sole- 
ly from  tlie  lawyer's 
standpoint,  that  of  an 
action  at  law.  But 
tliose  men  are  few  in- 
deed— in  San  Francisco 
they  might  be  counted 
on  the  fingers  of  one 
hand — s  o  constituted 
and  so  trained  as  to  be 
actually  efficient  in  the 
dual  capacity  of  law- 
yer and   business   man. 

One  of  these  latter 
is  William  A.  Nunlist. 
lie,  by  a  combination 
of  faculties,  wide  and 
varied  experience  and 
peculiar  training,  i  s 
the  business  man's 
lawyer  in  the  sense  in 
whicli  present  condi- 
tions in  the  United 
States  have  defined 
"business  man."  Not 
the  lawyer  wlio  does 
all  his  work  in  court 
or  in  an  ofl!ice,  but  one 
equally  at  ease  in 
eitlier place;  not  lie  who 
litigates  every  contro- 
versy, but  the  one  wlio  helps  his  clients 
primarily  to  avoid  lawsuits  and  then 
to  win  tliem  if  tliey  cannot  be  avoided. 

To  settle  everytiiing,  regardless  of 
the  result,  is  no  more  good  business 
than  to  litigate  every  question  that 
arises.  The  sole  end  of  a  lawsuit  is 
to  accomplish  substantial  justice.  If 
this  end  can  be  attained  by  avoiding 
controversy  or  as  a  matter  of  negotia- 
tion after  a  difficulty  has  arisen,  it  is 
so  much  the  more  advantageous  to  all 
concerned;  if  it  cannot,  litigation  is  the 
last  resort.  This  balancing  of  the  con- 
siderations of  practical  business  expe- 
diency against  tlie  probable  outcome  of 
litigation  is  the  province  of  tlie  business 
lawyer. 

Born  January  26,  1S76,  at  Springfield, 
Ohio,  Mr.  Nunlist  was  educated  in  the 
public  schools  of  Ohio,  at  Wittenberg 
College,  Ohio  Northern  University,  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago,  the  law  school  of 
the  same  institution  and  the  John  Mar- 
shall law  scliool  at  Chicago.  He  was 
not  sent  to  schopl — lie  went.  Conse- 
quently he  had  to  finance  his  going. 
He  did  this  first  as  a  stenographer,  then 
successively  as  a  teacher  of  mathemat- 
ics, as  an  expert  stenographer  and 
secretary  to  managing  officials  of  busi- 
ness corporations,  and  finally  by  filling 
various  corporation  positions,  tlie  di- 
rect result  of  former  employments. 
Thus  was  gained  a  practical  experience 
with  twenty-one  or  twenty-two  differ- 
ent kinds  of  busine.sses,  among  them 
retail  dry  goods,  stationery  and  furni- 
ture;    manufacturing    agricultural    im- 


plements, radiators,  carriages,  railway 
cars,  iron  foundries  and  steel  mills, 
structural  iron  work,  meat  packing, 
railroads,  oil,  insurance,  contracting, 
bank  and  trust  companies,  newspapers 
and  hotels.  He  came  to  California  to 
adjust  the  losses  and  wind  up  the  af- 
fairs of  two  insolvent 
insurance  companies 
and  lias  since  made 
San  Francisco  his 
home. 

Americans  are  essen- 
tially a  business  peo- 
ple. They  have  been 
such  since  the  first  col- 
onies were  planted 
here  and  will  remain  so 
for  a  n  indefinite  time 
to  come.  Taking  into 
consideration  our  pe- 
culiar institutions  1 1 
can  be  satisfactorily 
shown  that  we  are 
likewise  a  lawabiding 
people,  much  agitation 
to  the  contiary  not- 
with  standing.  The 
great  difficulty  always 
is  to  know  what  tlie 
law  is.  As  our  devel- 
opment becomes  more 
complex,  legislation 
piles  up. 

Generally  speaking, 
our  laws  are  made  by 
men  who  have  had  lit- 
tle or  no  actual  expe- 
rience with  modern  lousiness  conditions. 
Tliey  are  interpreted  by  lawyers  in  their 
counsel  to  clients,  then  by  judges  who 
must  decide  controversies.  In  both  cases 
this  interpretation  and  application  must 
be  made  by  men  almost  invariably 
trained  for  something  altogetlier  dif- 
ferent from  practical  business.  As  a 
result  business  affairs  are  hampered  by 
ill-considered  lerislation,  retarded  by 
advice  and  counsel  which  lacks  com- 
prehensiveness, and  positively  repressed 
by  ensuing  needless  and  costly  litiga- 
tion. A  final  decision,  when  rendered, 
often  reflects  the  fundamental  question 
in  sucii  a  curious  way  as  to  make  the 
whole  matter  even  more  uncertain  than 
it  was  at  the  beginning. 

The  need  for  the  business  man's  law- 
yer is  thus  obvious.  He  is  tlie  business 
man  and  sees  the  questions  involved 
from  that  standpoint;  and  he  is  the 
lawyer,  who  must  find  the  way  to 
solve  business  difficulties  by  recognized 
legal  principles.  Considerations  such 
as  these,  in  the  opinion  of  the  business 
men  themselves,  explain  why  there  is 
a  growing  tendency  on  their  part  to 
seek  and  make  use  of  sound  legal-busi- 
ness advice.  It  also  accounts,  to  a  large 
extent,  for  the  success  of  Mr.  Nunlist, 
a  man  who  has  the  needed  dual  capacity. 
Mr.  Nunlist  has  had  a  great  deal  of 
litigation  before  the  Interstate  Com- 
merce Commission  and  also  in  the  Fed- 
eral courts.  He  represents  a  number 
of  corporations  as  general  counsel,  and 
his  practice  takes  him  all  over  the 
State.  Always,  however,  he  is  the  busi- 
ness man's  lawyer. 


309 


EDWARD  H.  O'BRIEN 


BACK  of  the  name  "C.  E.  Bickford 
&  Company,"  a  name  known  in 
every  coffee  market  of  the  United 
States,  is  a  reputation  for  iTon- 
esty  of  purpose  and  straight  dealing 
that  has  come  as  the  result  of  half  a 
century  of  upright  work.  And  back  of 
this  is  the  ever-green 
memory  of  Clarence  E. 
Bickford,  and  the 
forceful  personality  of 
Edward  H.  O'Brien, 
who  since  Mr.  Bick- 
ford's  death  in  lt)US 
has  carried  on  the  con- 
cern's  business. 

C.  E.  Bickford  & 
Company  is  one  of  the 
largest  coffee  broker- 
age houses  outside  of 
New  York  City,  and,  in 
volume  of  business,  one 
of  the  most  important 
in  the  Nation.  It  is  the 
only  statistician  in  this 
market  on  the  coffee 
trade  of  the  world,  and 
comes  as  near  being  an 
exchange  as  the  busi- 
ness of  the  port  war- 
rants. It  is  the  con- 
trolling factor  in  its 
field  on  the  Pacific 
Coast,  and  handles 
more  Central  Ameri- 
can coffee  products 
than  any  other  brokerage  organization 
in  the  United  States. 

On  April  27,  1908,  in  memoriam  to 
Clarence  E.  Bickford,  there  was  drawn 
up  and  signed  by  practically  every  cof- 
fee dealer  in  San  Francisco  an  apprecia- 
tion which,  in  scope,  is  unique.  One 
paragraph  in  particular,  which  explains 
the  standing  of  the  late  Mr.  Bickfprd 
and    his    concern,    is    as    follows: 

"Mr.  Bickford  has  so  possessed  the 
confidence  of  the  coffee  trade  that  he 
has  been,  by  common  consent,  the  ar- 
biter and  adjuster  of  all  questions  aris- 
ing between  importers  on  tlie  one  hand, 
and  all  dealers  on  the  other.  His  de- 
cisions have  been  so  just,  so  considerate 
of  the  rights  of  the  disputants,  that 
acquiescence  has  always  followed  the 
decision;  thereby  litigation  and  quar- 
rels have  been  avoided  and  good  feeling 
and  good  fellowship  have  existed  w^here 
there  might  have  been  bitterness  and 
recrimination." 

There  is  a  great  deal  that  is  romantic 
in  the  history  of  C.  E.  Bickford  &  Com- 
pany, and  in  the  manner  in  which  Ed- 
ward H.  O'Brien  came  to  be  its  head 
and  principal  owner. 

The  business  was  established  in  1854, 
when  San  Francisco  was  still  the  Mecca 
for  gold-seekers,  by  R.  Hockhofler,  then 
Consul  for  Austria.  Clarence  E.  Bick- 
ford was  engaged  as  office  boy  when  lie 
was  thirteen  years  old,  and  so  worked 
and  advanced  himself  that  in  1883,  on 
the  demise  of  Mr.  Hockhofler,  the  busi- 


ness was  turned  over  to  him.  The  name 
was  changed  to  "C.  E.  Bickford,"  and 
thus  it  continued  until  1908,  the  year 
of  Mr.  Bick ford's  death. 

Edward  H.  O'Brien  was  born  in  San 
Francisco  in  1876.  He  left  school  when 
he  was  twelve  years  old  and  secured  a 
position  with  the  Cas- 
tle Brotliers  coffee 
house,  with  whom  for 
the  next  five  years  he 
served  his  appren- 
ticeship in  the  cof- 
fee business.  When  he 
was  twenty  years  old 
he  became  a  salesman 
for  C.  E.  Bickford.  Like 
Bickford  himself,  Mr. 
O'Brien  plunged  into 
his  work  with  such  a 
will  that  soon  his  em- 
ployer made  him  chief 
clerk,  and  he  remained 
in  this  capacity  about 
seven   years. 

For  about  two  years 
before  his  death  Mr. 
Bickford  was  practi- 
cally confined  to  his 
home  by  illness,  and 
during  this  period  Mr. 
O'Brien  ran  the  busi- 
ness. By  will  Mr.  Bick- 
ford left  his  entire 
business  to  Mr. 
O'Brien,  with  the  legal  right  to  con- 
tinue the  business  name.  Then  two 
years  ago  Mr.  O'Brien  took  in,  as  his 
junior  partners,  P.  W-  Holmes  and  J.  O. 
Palkinham,  who  also  had  been  w^ith 
Mr.  Bickford  in  the  business  for  ten 
years  or  more. 

C.  E.  Bickford  &  Company  has  as  high 
a  commercial  standing  as  any  broker- 
age house  in  the  United  States.  For 
many  years  it  has  tested  for  their  drink- 
ing qualities  coffee  samples  submitted 
on  bids  to  all  public  institutions  in 
California.  Several  of  its  clients  among' 
the  wholesale  coffee  dealers  have  dealt 
with  it  for  as  long  as  fifty  years,  and 
today  it  has  the  exclusive  representa- 
tion of  more  than  90  per  cent  of  the 
Central  American  coffees  shipped  into 
the  port  of  San  Francisco. 

Since  the  awarding  of  the  grand  prize 
at  the  Panama-Pacific  International  Ex- 
position to  Guatemalan  coffees,  as  the 
best  grown  anywhere  in  the  world,  Mr. 
O'Brien  has  conceived  the  project  of 
making  Guatemalan  coffees  of  more 
importance  in  the  United  States.  In 
the  course  of  his  career  lie  has  visited 
Europe,  Brazil  and  Argentine  Republic 
to  further  his  knowledge  of  coffee  grow- 
ing", and  expects  soon  to  visit  Guatemala 
to  complete  plans  for  his  forthcoming 
cajnpaign. 

This  should  result  in  not  only  the 
popularizing  of  Central  American  cof- 
fees in  the  Eastern  States,  but  it  should 
vastly  increase  the  importance  of  San 
Francisco  as  a  world  market. 


310 


JOHN  ALBERT  PERCY 


KNOWN  throughout  the  West  as  the 
man  who  put  the  "bucket-shops" 
out  of  business,  John  Albert 
Percy  has  been  kept  in  the  public 
eye  by  a  number  of  other  matters  of  a 
legal  nature  that  he  has  carried  through 
to  a  successful  conclusion.  Not  the 
least  of  these  was  his 
bill,  passed  at  the  1915 
session  of  the  State 
Legislature  of  Califor- 
nia, settling  the  time- 
worn  question  of  the 
negotiability  of  bonds. 

Ever  since  the  bank- 
ing and  brokerage  firm 
of  E.  F.  Hutton  &  Co. 
established  its  San 
Francisco  offices  in 
1905,  Mr.  Percy  has 
represented  the  con- 
cern as  its  general 
counsel.  About  1911, 
when  the  illegal 
"bucket-shops"  were 
giving  Federal  oflicia'.s 
not  a  little  concern.  Mi-. 
Percy  was  retained  by 
the  New.  York  Stock 
Exchange  and  the  Chi- 
cago Board  of  Trade  to 
drive  those  gamtalin;? 
institutions  out  of  San 
Francisco.  He  pre- 
pared and  secured  the 
adoption  of  the  neces- 
sary ordinance  and 
launched  a  series  of 
prosecutions  which  spelled  the  "bucket- 
shops'  "  doom.  At  the  same  time  he  had 
passed  by  the  Legislature  a  stature 
covering  the  same  ground,  but  to  this 
Governor  Johnson  refused  to  attach  his 
signature.  Since  that  time  Mr.  Percy 
has  had  the  same  law  enacted  in  Oak- 
land, Los  Angeles  and  Salt  Lake  City, 
and  through  his  efforts  every  "bucket- 
shop"  west  of  Denver  has  been  forced 
to  close. 

John  A.  Percy  was  born  February  4, 
1871,  on  a  farm  in  Illinois,  the  son  of 
John  A.  Percy  and  Hannah  M.  (Miller) 
Percy.  When  four  years  old  he  came 
to  California  with  his  parents  and  set- 
tled in  Monterey  County  about  two 
miles  from  Salinas.  He  attended  the 
Salinas  public  schools,  riding  back  and 
forth  on  horseback,  and  in  1SS7  was  the 
first  graduate  of  the  then  new  Salinas 
High  School.  He  then  attended  the  Uni- 
versity of  the  Pacific  at  San  Jose  and 
was  graduated  in  1891  with  the  degree 
of  A.  B.  He  has  since  received  from 
the  University  of  the  Pacific  the  hono- 
rary degree  of  A.  M.,  and  has,  since  1895, 
been  its  attorney  and  one  of  its  trus- 
tees. 

Ever  since  his  high  school  days  Mr. 
Percy  had  had  his  mind  set  on  studying 
law.  In  1891  he  matriculated  at  Stan- 
ford LTniversity  with  the  first  class  en- 
tered there,  but  changed  his  mind  and 
took  his  law  course  at  the  University 
of  Michigan,  Ann  Arbor.  He  was  grad- 
uated with  the  degree  of  LL.B.  in  1893. 
It  was  necessary  for  him,  while  at  the 


university,  largely  to  pay  his  own  way. 
This  he  did  by  selling  books,  earning 
$800  in  three  months. 

Returning  in  1893  to  San  Jose,  to 
which  place  his  parents  had  removed, 
Mr.  Percy  entered  the  law  offices  of 
Morehouse  &  Tuttle.  Early  in  1894  he 
opened  an  office  for 
himself.  In  December 
of  that  year  ex-Sen- 
ator James  G.  Fair 
died  in  San  Francisco, 
leaving  an  estate  of 
$20,000,000.  Through  a 
friendship  that  began 
in  his  student  days,  Mr. 
Percy  was  retained  to 
represent  all  the 
brothers  and  sisters  of 
Pair,  to  whom  had  been 
bequeathed  legacies 
aggregating  $900,000 
and  also  a  contingent 
interest  in  Fair's  estate 
under  the  famous  trust 
clause  in  Fair's  will. 
Thereupon,  in  January 
of  1S95,  Mr.  Percy 
moved  his  office  to  San 
Francisco.  The  subse- 
quent litigation  over 
Fair's  estate  was  one 
of  the  most  notable 
will  contests  San  Fran- 
cisco has  ever  known. 
But  during  the  first 
year  of  the  legal  battle 
Mr.  Percy  compro- 
mised, on  behalf  of  his  clients,  with  the 
Pair  children,  who  paid  approximately 
$1,000,000  to  settle  the  brothers'  and 
sisters'   claims. 

Early  in  1896,  after  this  victory,  Mr. 
Percy  became  a  partner  in  the  law  firm 
of  Pierson  &  Mitchell,  attorneys  for 
three  of  the  executors  of  the  Fair  will. 
Robert  Brent  Mitchell  withdrew  from 
the  firm  in  1902  and  Mr.  Percy  con- 
tinued on  with  William  M.  Pierson  until 
the  latter's  death  in  1904.  Then,  until 
the  fire  of  1906,  he  was  associated  with 
L.  A.  Redman,  but  since  has  practiced 
alone. 

With  Pierson  &  Mitchell,  Mr.  Percy 
helped  organize  the  California  Gas  & 
Electric  Corporation  and  represented 
it  until  its  absorption  by  the  Pacific  Gas 
&  Electric  Company.  They  also  organ- 
ized and  represented  the  North  Shore 
Railroad  Company,  consolidated  later 
with  the  Northwestern  Pacific,  and  the 
Sanitary  Reduction  Works,  which  is 
now  owned  by  the  City  of  San  Francisco. 
Mr.  Percy's  practice  is  largely  con- 
fined to  corporation  and  probate  mat- 
ters. He  represents  the  San  Francisco 
Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to 
Animals,  for  which  he  has  obtained 
much  legislation,  and  is  a  director  in 
the  corporation  of  McNab  &  Smith  and 
a  large  number  of  other  corporations. 
He  was  married  February  10,  1904,  to 
Miss  Adeline  A.  Smith  of  San  Francisco 
and  has  two  sons — John  Albert,  Jr.,  10, 
and  George   Dowling,    3. 


27 


311 


JOHN  W.  PRESTON 


"A 


MAN  cannot  hope  to  obtain 
lasting  results  without  con- 
centration. If  he  is  to  be  a 
lawyer,  a  good  one,  he  must 
apply  himself  to  law  and  its  ramifica- 
tions constantly,  ever  studying  to  ad- 
vance. The  same  is  true  of  every  pro- 
f  e  s  s  i  o  n  in  which 
knowledge  counts — 
and  this  means  all  of 
them." 

Such  is  the  philos- 
ophy of  John  W.  I'res- 
ton,  United  States 
Attorney  for  the 
Northern  District  o  f 
California.  By  c  o  n- 
stant  application  h  e 
won  the  goal  and  made 
a  name  for  himself;  by 
the  same  means  he 
became  United  States 
District   Attorney. 

Born  at  Woodbury, 
Cannon  County,  Ten- 
nessee, May  14,  1877, 
Mr.  Preston  is  the  son 
of  Hugh  Lawson  Pres- 
ton, president  of  the 
First  National  Bank  of 
Woodbury,  former 
State  Senator  and 
holder  of  other  public 
offices  for  the  past 
forty  years.  Mr.  Pres- 
ton was  educated  at  a 
country  school,  then  at  Woodbury 
Academy,  and  in  1894,  when  only  17 
years  old,  was  graduated  from  Burritt 
College  at  Spencer,  Tennessee,  the 
youngest  graduate  the  college  ever  had. 
The  latter  part  of  1894  and  all  of  189.5  he 
taught  school  in  De  Kalb  County,  Ten- 
nessee, earning  enough  to  attend 
Bethany  College  at  Bethany,  West  Vir- 
ginia, for  a  year. 

Meanwhile,  as  a  youth,  Mr.  Preston 
had  been  delving  into  law.  So  closely 
did  he  apply  himself  that  he  was  en- 
abled, from  1894  on,  to  practice  with- 
out a  license  in  the  justice  courts.  So 
hard  did  he  labor  over  borrowed  law 
books  that  he  contracted  fever.  He 
was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  Tennessee 
April  3,  1897,  and  after  practicing  alone 
for  eight  months  formed  a  partnership 
with  Major  James  A.  Jones,  a  cele- 
brated   lawyer. 

In  1899  Mr.  Preston  came  to  Cali- 
fornia to  try  a  will  case  in  Mendocino 
County,  won  it,  and  pending  its  ap- 
peal returned  home  and  established  a 
branch  law  office  at  Murfreesboro,  Ten- 
nessee. In  1901  he  came  back  to  Cal- 
ifornia and  compromised  the  case.  He 
was  married  at  Nashville  January  8, 
1902,  to  Sarah  Rucker,  by  whom  he  has 
since  become  the  father  of  two  chil- 
dren. The  honeymoon  trip  brought 
the  young  attorney  to  Ukiah  again, 
this  time  for  good,  and  he  remained 
there  until  his  appointment  as  United 
States  Attorney  January  3,  1914,  for 
a   term    of    four   years. 


The  work  of  Mr.  Preston  in  the  fed- 
eral oflice  has  been  unique.  The  Euro- 
pean war  brought  about  a  situation 
which  made  him  prominent  as  a  pre- 
server of  United  States  neutrality.  He 
set  precedents,  as  legal  adviser  to  the 
Collector  of  the  Port,  in  the  case  of 
three  steamships  sus- 
pected of  being  about 
to  carry  supplies  to 
belligerent  warships  in 
the  Pacific  Ocean.  Tak- 
ing the  initiative, 
against  the  advice  of 
other  federal  officials, 
Mr.  Preston  held  that 
the  delivery  of  contra- 
band, even  at  sea,  was 
against  international 
law  and  virtually 
made  this  port  a  base 
of  supplies  for  the 
warring  nations.  He 
started  prosecutions 
and  was  sustained  by 
Washington;  and  in- 
quiries before  the  lo- 
cal Federal  Grand 
Jury  were  followed  by 
similar  ones  instituted 
by  the  United  States 
Attorney  of  New  York. 
Mr.  Preston's  legal 
career  at  Ukiah,  be- 
f  o  r  e  he  became  the 
Government's  a  t  t  o  r  - 
ney,  was  fruitful.  Always  independent 
in  politics,  he  secured  the  district  attor- 
neyship through  no  "pull"  of  any  kind; 
in  fact  he  met  strong  opposition.  But 
it  was  shown  by  sworn  affidavits  from 
disinterested  court  officials  that  he 
had  tried  more  than  900  cases  in  court 
in  California  with  less  than  50  ver- 
dicts against  him — and  by  this  record 
of  legal  successes  alone  he  won  the 
appointment. 

Mr.  Preston  organized  and  for  ten 
years  was  president  of  the  Ukiah 
Guarantee  Abstract  and  Title  Company, 
and  is  a  member  of  the  law  firm  of 
Preston  &  Preston  with  his  brother, 
Hugh  L.  Preston,  Jr.,  as  partner.  He 
is  one  of  the  organizers  and  directors 
of  the  Fort  Bragg  Commercial  Bank  at 
Fort  Bragg  and  of  the  Willits  Commer- 
cial Bank  at  Willits,  and  is  president 
of  the  Preston  Loan  and  Investment 
Company  of  Ukiah,  a  private  concern 
handling  his  realty  and  financial  hold- 
ings and  those  of  his  brother,  Hugh. 

Although  he  has  always  maintained 
his  right  to  vote  as  he  pleases,  and 
not  as  someone  else  pleases,  and  has 
thus  upheld  his  political  independence, 
Mr.  Preston  is  an  active  worker  for 
the  Democratic  cause.  He  was  chair- 
man of  the  Democratic  County  Central 
Committee  and  a  member  of  the  State 
Committee  in  Tennessee,  and  for  sev- 
eral years  was  chairman  of  the  Men- 
docino County  Committee.  He  was 
elected  to  the  State  Legislature  In 
1908  from  the  Sixth  district  and  was 
renominated  in  1910,  but  declined  to  run. 


312 


GEORGE  E.  PRICE 


THE  general  impression  seems  to 
be  tliat  a  career  in  the  United 
States  Army  unfits  one,  at  least 
temporarily,  for  any  profession 
other  than  the  military.  But  George 
Elder  Price  is  a  striking  example  of 
what  an  Army  training  really  will  ac- 
complish, providing  a 
man  talce  advantage 
of  it.  When  Mr.  Price 
emerged  from  sixteen 
years  in  tlie  Army  he 
already  had  gained  ad- 
mittance to  the  bar  in 
Kentucky  and  almost 
at  once  started  prac- 
ticing law  in  San  Fran- 
cisco after  being  ad- 
mitted  in   California. 

Mr.  Price  is  of  that 
sturdy  type  that  mal-ces 
up  the  real  American 
citizenship.  He  was 
born  December  17, 1S77, 
in  Davis  County,  Ken- 
tucl^y,  on  the  farm 
of  his  father,  George 
Elder  Price.  His 
mother,  Lydia  (Miles) 
Price,  was  of  the  line 
of  the  Linthicum  fam- 
ily of  Kentucky  and 
Virginia.  His  paternal 
great  -  great  -  great- 
great  -  great  -  grand  - 
father  was  John  Price 
the  E^migrant,  who 
came  from  Wales  in 
1620  and  settled  in  the  Jamestown 
Colony.  He  v^^as  one  of  the  eleven 
counsellors,  with  Sir  Francis  Wyatt,  of 
the  provisional  government  of  the  col- 
ony under  the  London  Company.  His 
wife  was  slain  in  the  Jamestown  Mas- 
sacre of  May,  1622.  One  of  his  de- 
scendants was  General  Sterling  Price 
of  Missouri,  great-uncle  of  the  present 
George  E.  Price. 

During  his  early  years  George  E. 
Price  attended  the  district  scliool  near 
his  home.  When  he  was  yet  a  boy  his 
mother  died  and  from  then  on  he  was 
raised  in  the  family  of  an  uncle,  a 
lawyer  in  Kentucky.  At  the  age  of 
fourteen  he  left  school  and  thereafter 
Was    with    another    relative    in    Illinois. 

In  1S96,  attracted  by  the  Army,  he 
enlisted  and  was  assigned  to  the 
Seventh  Cavalry,  with  which  he  served 
in  the  Spanish-American  and  other 
campaigns.  Re-enlisting  in  1899,  he 
became  a  clerk,  and  later  chief  clerk, 
at  the  recruiting  station  at  Denver.  He 
attended  night  school,  was  studious  and 
ambitious  and  in  1901  gained  an  ap- 
pointment as  second  lievitenant  of  the 
Tenth  Cavalry.  He  was  made  first 
lieutenant  of  the  Fourteenth  Cavalry  in 
1909. 

Most  of  Mr.  Price's  relatives  were 
lawyers  and  he  never  took  his  eyes  off 
the  ultimate  goal,  the  law.  When  he 
became  Second  Lieutenant  he  attended 
the  military  university  at  Fort  Leaven- 
worth, Kansas,  taking  the  la\v  course 
there  as  well  as  engineering,  the 
languages  and  others.  Seated  in  his 
tent  beneath   the   trees   of  Cuba   or  the 


Pbilippines  he  studied  law,  and  by  dili- 
gent application  was  enabled  to  quali- 
fy, in  1906,  for  admittance  to  the  bar 
in    Kentucky. 

In  1909  he  was  assigned  to  engineer- 
ing work  in  connection  with  the  Hetch 
Hetchy  water  project  under  the  Interior 
Department.  One  night 
his  horse  fell  with  him 
over  a  forty-foot  cliff 
in  the  Yosemite  and  he 
suffered  a  broken  leg 
and  other  injuries  that 
kept  him  in  tlie  hos- 
pital for  eight  or  nine 
months.  Later  rejoin- 
ing his  regiment  in  the 
Philippines  he  c  o  n  - 
tracted  tropical  dis- 
eases which  brought 
about  his  retirement 
from  the  Army  for  dis- 
ability   in    1912. 

Thereupon  Mr.  Price 
returned  to  California 
to  regain  his  strength. 
He  was  admitted  to 
pi-actice  before  the  Su- 
preme Court  and  en- 
tered the  law  office  of 
George  D.  Shadburne  in 
the  Humboldt  Bank 
building.  Later  he 
opened  offices  for  him- 
self in  his  present  lo- 
cation, the  Underwood 
building. 

Mr.  Price's  practice 
has  been  largely  in  the  criminal  courts. 
Among  his  important  cases  was  that  of 
Emil  Gunlach,  charged  with  the  mur- 
der, on  the  night  of  November  4,  1914, 
of  Louis  A.  Andrus,  proprietor  of  the 
Casa  Loma  Apartments  on  Fillmore 
f^treet.  Gunlach  was  acquitted.  Mr. 
Price  also  made  a  strong  effort  on  be- 
half of  Verne  W.  Fowler,  convicted  of 
the  slaying  of  Willie  Fasset  during  an 
attempted  burglary  December  18,  1914. 
Fowler's  case  was  appealed.  The 
civil  law  work  of  Mr.  Price  is  largely 
on  behalf  of  the  Wholesalers'  Board  of 
Trade. 

During  his  connection  with  the  Mili- 
tary Information  Division  at  Manila 
Mr.  Price  helped  advance  legislation  for 
the  Anti-Espionage  law,  prohibiting  the 
taking  of  photographs  within  a  military 
reservation.  He  also  was  one  of  the 
agitators  for  the  present  law  making 
it  a  crime  for  a  man  to  secure  free 
transportation  on  the  representation 
that  he  is  about  to  enlist  in  the  Army 
or  Navy. 

Fraternally,  Mr.  Price  belongs  to  the 
Ignited  Spanish  War  Veterans,  Modern 
T\''oodmen  of  America,  Moose,  Red  Men, 
Eagles  and  Elks.  He  is  a  fellow  of  the 
Royal  Geographical  Society  of  London 
and  belongs  to  the  National  Geograph- 
ical Society  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  Union  League  and  Southern  Clubs. 
He  was  married  in  1903  at  Hudson,  N. 
Y.,  to  Miss  "Wie  D.  Townsend.  The 
couple  have  three  children,  Dorothy 
Townsend,  Cordelia  Newland  and 
George  Sterling  Price. 


313 


W.  J.  RAND,  JR. 


ONE  who  docs  not  believe  that  "ifs 
the  little  tilings  in  liie  tliat 
count,"  need  only  analyze  tlie  ca- 
reer of  F.  W.  "Woolworth,  or  of 
W.  J.  Rand,  Jr.,  Pacific  Coast  manager 
of  the  F.  W.  Woolworth  Co.,  to  be 
convinced  that  the  old  saying  is 
eminently   true. 

It  was  by  looking 
after  the  little  things 
that  Mr.  Woolworth 
made  of  his  concern  the 
larjrest  of  its  kind  in 
the  world.  It  was  by 
looking  after  little 
things,  tending  strictly 
to  business  and  guard- 
ing his  employer's  in- 
terests that  Mr.  Rand 
advanced  himself  from 
a  $1  a  day  job  as  stock 
boy  to  the  Pacific  Coast 
managership,  with  fifty 
stores  and  nine  states 
and  something  like 
1,500  employes  under 
his  direction. 

Mr.  Rand  is  a  native 
of  Brooklyn,  New 
York.  He  was  born  Au- 
gust 2,  1S77,  the  son  of 
W.  J.  Rand,  a  musician 
who  has  since  retired 
from  active  business,  and  Lillias  L«. 
(Warner)  Rand.  He  attended  the  pub- 
lic schools  of  Brooklyn  and  there- 
after spent  five  years  at  Trinity  School 
of  New  York,  finishing  at  the  latter  in- 
stitution when  he  was  about  eighteen 
years   old. 

From  school  Mr.  Rand  went  directly 
into  the  oflSces  of  a  New  York  advertis- 
ing concern  as  office  boy.  Later  he  so- 
licited classified  advertisements  for  tne 
New  York  Journal,  and  in  1897,  when  he 
was  twenty  years  old,  began  his  so 
fruitful  connection  with  the  F.  W. 
Woolworth    stores. 

At  the  outset  Mr.  Rand  was  stock  boy 
in  the  F.  W.  Woolworth  Five  and  Ten 
Cent  Store  at  Yonkers,  N.  Y.  The  work 
was  hard,  the  job  was  confining,  and  the 
emolument  was  $1  a  day — $6  a  week. 
Mr.  Woolworth,  however,  had  the  repu- 
tation of  being  willing  to  help  his  em- 
ployes if  they  were  willing  to  help 
themselves.  He  still  has  that  reputa- 
tion, by  the  way.  He  has  given  hun- 
dreds of  young  men  the  opportunity  to 
advance  themselves  in  the  business 
world,  and  the  fruits  of  this  policy  have 
been  most  gratifying. 

With  the  future,  rather  than  the  pres- 
ent, in  mind,  Mr.  Rand  proceeded  to 
stick  to  business.  The  eyes  of  the  store 
manager  were  upon  him,  even  though 
his  work  kept  him  in  the  basement,  and 
within  two  months  his  salary  was  raised 


to  $10  a  week  and  he  was  made  floor 
walker.  He  continued  thus  until  1900, 
when  he  was  transferred  to  Norfolk, 
^'irginia,  as  assistant  manager  of  the 
store  there.  In  1901  he  was  sent  to 
Hartford,  Connecticut,  in  the  same  ca- 
pacity and  in  1902  became  manager  of 
the  store  at  Maiden, 
Massachusetts,  a  sub- 
urb of  Boston.  About 
this  time  he  married 
Miss  Clara  Wake  of 
Providence,  Rhode  Is- 
land. 

From  this  time  on 
Mr.  Rand's  rise  was 
rapid.  He  had  already 
proved  his  worth  and 
it  remained  only  for 
him  to  acquire  a  broad- 
er experience.  In  1904 
he  was  made  manager 
of  the  Decatur,  Illinois, 
store;  in  1907  he  was 
given  charge  of  the 
store  at  Omaha,  Ne- 
braska, and  before  the 
end  of  the  same  year 
was  recalled  to  the 
Chicago  offices  as  trav- 
eling superintendent. 
The  assistant  mana- 
gership of  the  Chicago 
ofHces  was  given  him  in  1910,  and  in 
1912  he  was  made  a  director  of  the 
F.  W.  Woolworth  Co.  and  Pacific  Coast 
manager  with  offices  in  San  Francisco, 
where  he  has  since  rep.iained.  To- 
day he  is  in  charge  of  all  the  F.  W. 
Woolworth  Co.  stores  w^est  of  Den- 
ver. 

The  F.  W.  Woolworth  Co.  operates 
more  than  800  stores,  among  which  47 
are  in  Great  Britain  and  75  in  Canada. 
Mr.  Woolworth  started  his  first  store  in 
Utica,  New  York,  with  $300  capital.  His 
1915  business  was  expected  to  reach  the 
startling  figure  of  $70,000,000.  There 
are  probably  less  than  ten  concerns  in 
the  United  States  whose  volume  of  busi- 
ness is  annually  so  great.  The  growth 
of  the  corporation  in  the  past  few  years 
may  b^  realized  from  the  fact  that  when 
Mr.  Rand  started  in  as  basement  stock 
boy,  there  were  but  47  Woolworth  stores 
in  operation. 

Mr.  I^and,  by  the  way,  came  near 
being  a  California  native  son,  his  par- 
ents having  moved  to  this  State  when 
he  was  six  months  old,  but  later  re- 
turned   to    the    east. 

Socially,  Mr.  Rand  is  a  member  of  the 
Claremont  Country  Club  and  the  Olym- 
pic Club.  He  is  a  director  of  the  Cham- 
ber of  Commerce  of  San  Francisco  and 
also  belongs  to  the  San  Francisco  Com- 
mercial Club  and  the  Rotarian  Club 
and  to  the  Masonic  order, 


314 


H.  A.  RISPIN 


IT  is  a  fact  g-enerally  known  that  a 
man  who  has  been  reared  in  a 
certain  environment,  and  wlio  elects 
to  remain  in  that  environment  to 
mould  his  adult  career,  is  more  likely 
to  attain  unusual  success  than  the  man 
who  invades  such  a  field,  as  it  were, 
from  without. 

H.  A.  Rispin,  vice- 
president  of  the  Amity 
Oil  Company  and  of- 
ficer or  stockholder  of 
a  number  of  other  con- 
cerns, comes  under 
this  designation.  Born 
August  26,  lb;72,  in 
Petrolia,  Ontario,  the 
only  producing  oil  field 
in  the  Dominion  o  f 
Canada  and  one  dis- 
co v  e  r  e  d  about  the 
same  time  as  the  oil 
fields  of  Pennsylvania, 
it  was  only  natural 
that  Mr.  Rispin  should 
finally  choose  the  oil 
business  as  a  pursuit. 
Mr.  Rispin's  parents 
were  British  and  both 
died  when  he  was  still 
an  infant.  In  fact  he 
was  at  such  a  tender 
age  that  he  has  no 
recollection  of  either 
his  father  or  inother. 
The  untimely  taking 
off  of  the  parents  left 
a  family  of  seven 
children  practically  without  support. 
It  was  in  such  a  crisis  that  W.  E. 
Rispin,  the  eldest  child,  proved  the 
stock  of  which  he  is  made.  He  was 
then  but  18  years  of  age,  and  was  em- 
ployed by  a  railroad.  Rather  than  see 
the  little  family  cast  about  and  sepa- 
rated on  the  tide  of  ill  fortune  he  as- 
sumed the  head  of  the  household, 
raised  his  youthful  charges  and  gave 
every  one  of  his  brothers  and  sisters 
an  education.  Nor  did  he,  by  marrying, 
assume  other  responsibilities  until  his 
primary  duties  were  fully  accomplished. 
Of  all  the  children,  H.  A.  Rispin 
secured  perhaps  the  most  incomplete 
education,  as  he  was  the  youngest. 
When  he  was  fourteen  years  old,  wish- 
ing to  lessen  the  cares  of  his  eldest 
brother,  whom  he  loved,  and  still  loves, 
as  a  father,  Mr.  Rispin  left  school  and 
started  out  to  make  his  own  way.  This 
he  has  done  ever  since,  at  times  against 
heavy  odds,  and,  as  in  the  case  of  most 
oil  operators,  with  hard  knocks  and 
many  ups  and  downs  in  the  develop- 
ment of  new  oil  fields.  Todaj%  however, 
at  the  age  of  43,  he  is  not  only  con- 
sidered an  authority  on  all  matters  per- 
taining to  the  production  of  oil  but  is 
also  numbered  among  the  big  oil  oper- 
ators of  California. 

Mr.  Rispin's  first  employment  was  as 
assistant  clerk  in  the  passenger  office 
of  the  Grand  Trunk  Railroad  at  Chat- 
ham, Ontario.     He  remained  there  until 


he  was  about  18,  when  he  became  a 
clerk  in  the  auditing  offices  of  the 
Chicago,  Burlington  &  Quincy  Railroad 
at  Chicago.  Subsequently  he  was  city 
passenger  agent  for  the  Canadian 
Pacific  in  Chicago  and  world's  fair  agent 
for  the  Illinois  Central  at  the  same  place. 
From  there  he  went  to 
New  York  City  to  ac- 
cept a  position  with  the 
Iron  Clad  Manufac- 
turing Company,  and 
after  two  years  went 
south  into  Tennessee 
and  Kentucky,  where 
he  engaged  in  the 
lumber  business  for 
himself.  In  1901  he 
came  to  San  Francisco, 
to  carry  out  his  long- 
cherished  plan  of 
entering  the  oil  indus- 
try. 

At  the  outset  Mr. 
Rispin  was  made 
manager  of  the  United 
Oil  Produceis,  then  the 
oil  marketing  concern 
of  the  State.  When  it 
was  merged  in  1902 
with  the  Standard  Oil 
Company,  Mr.  Rispin 
went  with  the  Rocke- 
feller concern  as  as- 
sistant manager  of  the 
fuel  oil  department.  In 
1903  he  resigned  to 
go  into  business  for 
himself,  since  which  time  he  has  been 
his  own  employer. 

Today,  besides  being  vice-president 
of  the  Amity  Oil  Company,  Mr.  Rispin 
is  secretary  of  the  Kernel  Consolidated 
Oil  Company  and  stockholder  in  a 
number  of  other  producing  oil  concerns. 
He  is  also  interested  in  a  financial  way 
in  businesses  of  a  different  nature,  and 
is  vice-president  of  the  Mission  Quarry 
Company,  whose  rock-crushing  plant 
is  the  largest  in  the  West.  He  has  pro- 
moted all  his  companies  among  his 
friends  and  acquaintances,  never  having 
sold  stock  to  the  general  public,  and 
consequently  has  shared  his  friends' 
losses  and  profits. 

Mr.  Rispin  was  married  in  1901  to 
Annette  Blake,  the  beautiful  daughter 
of  Isaac  E.  Blake,  California  oil  pioneer 
and  at  one  time  president  of  the  United 
Oil  I'roducers.  He  belongs  to  no  clubs 
nor  fraternities  and,  although  offered 
political  opportunities,  has  refused, 
preferring  his  own  fireside  to  the  tur- 
moil of  political  life.  He  has,  however, 
taken  an  active  interest  in  many 
matters  pertaining  to  the  welfare  of 
the  city,  especially  during  the  stressful 
days  immediately  following  the  fire  of 
1906. 

A  curious  fact  is  that  Mr.  Rispin  is 
one  of  but  four  men  by  that  name  now 
living,  and  each  of  the  four  has  but 
one  son.  The  family  is  traced  clear 
back  to  the  Battle  of  Agincourt  in  the 
fourteenth  century. 


315 


ROBERT  A.  ROOS 


Oakland     and 


FEW  San  Franciscans  have  been  so 
consistently  active  in  advancing 
the  interests  of  their  city,  in  ad- 
vertising it  to  the  world  as  a 
bustling  business  community  and  a  good 
place  to  live,  as  has  Robert  A.  Roos. 
Civic  projects  fatliered  or  participated 
in  by  him  have  helped 
San  Francisco  to  a  de- 
gree that  is  beyond 
measure. 

Born  June  7,  1883,  in 
San  Francisco,  Mr. 
Roos  is  the  son  of 
Adolph  Roos  and  Er- 
nestine (Mahler)  Roos. 
He  -was  graduated  from 
the  University  of  Cali- 
fornia in  1904,  after 
having  taken  a  leading 
part  in  student  affairs. 
He  at  once  entered  the 
San  Francisco  store  of 
Roos  Brothers,  a  busi- 
ness established  in  1851 
at  Virginia  City  by  his 
father  and  his  uncle, 
the  latter  Achille  Roos, 
and  removed  in  1860  to 
San  Francisco.  The 
younger  Mr.  Roos  has 
worked  himself  up  un- 
til now  he  is  a  member 
of  the  firm,  in  charge 
of  the  merchandise  of- 
fice of  the  largest  con- 
cern of  its  kind  west 
of  Chicago,  with  three 
stores — San  Francisco, 
Berkeley. 

Immediately  after  the  San  Francisco 
fire  of  1906  Mr.  Roos  was  in  charge  of 
one  of  the  relief  food  stations.  Soon 
afterward  he  was  one  of  the  founders 
of  the  Fillmore  Street  Improvement 
Association,  serving  as  an  officer  until 
1908.  He  and  another  member  made 
possible  by  their  work  the  illuminated 
arches  on  Fillmore  street,  a  monument 
to  civic   progressivism. 

In  1907,  during  the  street  car  and  ac- 
companying strikes,  he  v.'as  a  member 
of  the  San  Francisco  Conciliation  Com- 
mittee, which  helped  settle  the  con- 
troversies. 

In  190S,  when  Market  street  once 
more  became  the  business  artery,  Mr. 
Roos  helped  form  the  Downtown  As- 
sociation and  became  one  of  its  direc- 
tors. He  also  helped  form  the  Civic 
League  of  Improvement  Clubs  by  the 
amalgamation  of  about  100  improve- 
ment associations;  he  was  its  president 
in  1912  and  1913,  declining  a  third  term. 
He  was  in  charge  of  the  League's  non- 
partisan campaign,  w^hlch  did  away  with 
political  parties  in  San  Francisco's  gov- 
ernment system.  Again,  he  aided  in 
tlie  formation  of  the  League's  inspec- 
tion bureau,  which  checked  up  the  re- 
pairing of  the  city's  streets  and  the 
spending  of  the  bond  money,  thereby 
saving  a  con.'^ideraljle  sum.  And  he  co- 
operated with  the  City  Attorney  and 
Police  Department  in  framing  laws  and 
rules  for  the  police  traffic  squad. 


Mr.  Roos  was  a  member  of  the  com- 
mittee that  consolidated  the  old  Cham- 
ber of  Commerce,  the  Downtown  Asso- 
ciation and  the  IMerchants'  Association 
and  for  a  year  and  a  half  was  a  director 
of    the    new    Commerce    Chamber. 

What  really  started  the  campaign  for 
the     Panama-Pacific 
Exposition     was     the 
first     organized     New 
Year's   Eve   celebration 
in    San    Francisco    in 
1908-9,  which  Mr.  Roos 
li  e  1  p  e  d    bring    about, 
and     the     subsequent 
1909     Portola     festival, 
of     whose     executive 
committee    he    was    a 
m  e  m  b  e  r  ,   as  well   as 
of  the  Portola  of  1913. 
Prior    to    the    fiesta    he 
went    to    Washington 
and    persuaded    Presi- 
dent   Taft    to   flash    his 
tamous    "Toast    to    San 
Francisco"  around  the 
world,    Ijesides   visiting 
all   the   foreign    em- 
bassies    and     inviting 
the   nations   to   partici- 
pate   officially    in    the 
Portola,    which    many 
of    them    did.      In    1910 
he    was    a    member    of 
the   San  Francisco  del- 
egation   to    the    na- 
tional  capital  and  aided 
in    the    campaign    that 
finally  gave  the  exposition  to  this  city. 
He  now  is  a  member  of  the  exposition's 
ways    and    means    committee;    an:1    was 
one  of  those  in  charge  of  the  ceremonies 
on  October  14,  1911,  when  former  Presi- 
dent William  Howard  Taft  broke  ground 
for  the  exposition,  receiving  the  execu- 
tive at  his  home. 

In  dozens  of  other  ways  Mr.  Roos  has 
displayed  his  public  zeal.  When  the 
fleet  of  the  United  States  Navy  came 
around  the  world  to  San  Francisco  in 
1908  he  helped  arrange  the  entertain- 
ment for  the  enlisted  men.  He  is  one 
of  the  founders  of  the  San  Francisco 
Public  Schools'  Athletic  League,  sanc- 
tioned by  the  Board  of  Education,  was 
its  vice-president  and  is  still  one  of  its 
directors.  He  has  done  much  to  bring 
the  Chinese  merchants  of  the  city  into 
closer  touch  with  the  municipal  govern- 
ment. In  1909,  as  a  trustee  of  the  San 
Francisco  Society  for  the  Prevention  of 
Cruelty  to  Animals,  he  was  appointed 
as  its  delegate  to  the  International 
Animal  Protection  Congress  at  London. 
He  was  named  by  President  Taft  in  1912 
a  member  of  the  United  States  Assay 
Commission  and  served  one  year,  and 
during  Taft's  1912  campaign  was  sec- 
retary of  the  California  State  Republi- 
can Committee.  In  many  other  public 
movements  of  importance  Mr.  Roos  has 
proved  himself  an  indefatigable  worker. 
He  belongs  to  a  number  of  social  clubs 
both  in  San  Francisco  and  in  New  York. 
Mr.  Roos  was  married  April  26,  1915, 
in   Chicago,   to  Miss  Louise   Swabacker. 


316 


SAMUEL  ROSENHEIM 


DURING  the  more  than  a  quarter  of 
a  century  in  which  Samuel  Rosen- 
lieim  lias  been  engaged  in  prac- 
ticing law  he  has  widened  liis 
field  to  a  really  remarkable  extent,  con- 
sidering tlie  many  branches  of  his  pro- 
fession in  which  lie  lias  successfully 
practiced.  He  can 
hardly  be  said  to  have 
specialized,  as  do  the 
majority  o  f  lawyers. 
He  has  been,  and  is, 
equally  at  liome  in  all 
law's    subdivisions. 

Mr.  Rosenheim  is  the 
son  of  A.  Rosenheim 
and  Pauline  (Schwab) 
Rosenheim.  He  was 
born  November  17, 
1S63,  in  Portland,  Ore- 
gon, and  secured  li  i  s 
education  in  the  Port- 
land and  San  Francis- 
co public  schools.  In 
1SS6  Mr.  Rosenheim 
began  studying  law  in 
the  offices  of  Williams, 
Ach  &  Wood  in  Port- 
land, of  w^  h  i  c  h  firm 
George  H.  Williams, 
United  States  Attorney 
General  under  Presi- 
dent Grant,  was  senior 
member. 

A  year  later,  in  18S7, 
Mr.  Rosenheim  re- 
moved to  San  Francis- 
co and  entered  the  law 
offices  of  Rothschild  &  Ach.  He  was  ad- 
mitted to  the  bar  in  1889  and  thereafter 
had  his  office  with  those  of  the  firm 
until  1900.  From  then  on  until  1906  he 
practiced  alone,  but  in  the  latter  year 
formed  an  association  with  Albert  M. 
Johnson,  brother  of  Governor  Hiram 
Johnson  of  California.  Johnson  died 
soon  afterward,  however,  and  since  then 
Mr.  Rosenheim  has  practiced  entirely 
alone. 

As  heretofore  stated,  Mr.  Rosenlieim 
is  engaged  in  all  branches  of  civil  law, 
with  even  some  work  in  the  criminal 
courts.  Throughout  his  professional 
career  he  has  been  consistently  active 
in  important  litigation.  One  of  his  first 
cases  of  note  was  the  Agacio  divorce 
suit,  wliich  involved  more  questions 
of  international  law  than  perhaps 
any  other  divorce  action  on  record. 
It  lasted  over  a  period  of  two 
years. 

Agacio,  who  at  the  time  was  the 
Republic  of  Salvador's  minister  to 
France,  sued  for  divorce  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, claiming  American  citizenship. 
His  true  identity  was  established,  liow- 
ever,  after  he  liad  cut  off  the  allowance 
of  his  wife,  who  then  resided  in  Eng- 
land. The  ■wife  consulted  a  number  of 
lawyers  of  international  fame,  among 
them  Sir  Charles  Russell  and  Sir  George 
Lewis  of  London  and  Frederick  R.  Cou- 
dert  of  New  York  and  Paris,  who  ad- 
vised her  that  she  could  do  nothing. 
Mr.  Rosenheim,  however,  represent- 
ing Mrs.  Agacio,  secured  a  decree 
in  her  favor  after  a  money  settle- 
ment had  been  arranged  in  Paris. 
The      case      attracted      a      great      deal 


of     attention,     both     in     America     and 
abroad. 

In  1907,  and  subsequently,  Mr.  Rosen- 
heim was  of  counsel  of  the  Creditors' 
association  in  suits  against  the  direc- 
tors and  stockliolders  of  the  defunct 
California  Safe  Deposit  &  Trust  Com- 
pany, whose  failure  in- 
volved $12,000,000.  His 
success  in  this  litiga- 
tion may  be  measured 
by  the  fact  that  the 
Creditors'  association 
has  paid  its  members 
as  much,  to  date,  in  re- 
coveries from  the  di- 
rectors and  stockhold- 
ers as  lias  the  Trust 
company    receivers. 

If  Mr.  Rosenheim 
has  laid  stress  on  any 
particular  kind  of  law 
practice,  it  has  been 
on  corporation,  liabil- 
ity insurance,  bank- 
ruptcy and  probate 
matters.  He  has  de- 
fended  hundreds  of 
damage  suits  brought 
against  assured  under 
their  policies,  and  al- 
m  o  s  t  invariably  has 
won  a  complete  victory 
or  has  arranged  satis- 
factory adjustments. 

He  has  played  a  con- 
siderable part  in  the 
past  fevy  years  in  re- 
construction work  arising  from  the 
failure  of  railroads  or  other  public 
service  corporations.  In  fact  he  is  con- 
sulted in  nearly  all  important  cases  of 
industrial  or  public  service  corporation 
difficulties  tiiat  occur  locally.  He  has 
often  been  called  in  to  assist  corpora- 
tions in  danger  of  financial  ruin,  and 
has  usually  succeeded  in  tiding  matters 
over  until  difficulties  have  been  read- 
justed. Along  this  line  he  has  done 
considerable  work  for  insolvent  finan- 
cial institutions,  being  considered  an 
autliority  on  failures  involving  intri- 
cate questions  of  directors'  liability  or 
(luestions  going  into  figures  and  ac- 
counting. Also  has  he  had  much  prac- 
tice in  mechanic's  lien  and  admii-alty 
matters,  and  even  in  mining  cases.  But 
throughout  he  has  counseled  against 
long  drawn-out  litigation,  believing 
that  this  is  hurtful  to  client  and  lawyer 
alike. 

Mr.  Rosenheim  has  been  too  busy 
with  his  legal  vyork  to  take  much  active 
part  in  politics,  although  he  is  a  strong 
Republican  in  sympathies.  Not  long 
since  he  was  recommended  by  Governor 
Johnson  to  the  Industrial  Accident  Com- 
mission as  its  attorney,  but  finding  the 
position  would  command  all  of  his  time, 
Mr.  Rosenheim  declined  an  appointment. 
Besides  belonging  to  a  number  of 
charitable  organizations,  Mr.  Rosenheim 
is  a  member  of  the  B'nai  B'rith,  Masonic 
Order,  Traffic  Bureau  of  the  Merchants' 
Association,  Fly-Casting  Club  and  Civic 
League  of  Improvement  Clubs  and  the 
Bar  Association.  He  was  married  Sep- 
tember 18,  1901,  in  San  Francisco  to  Mrs, 
Fannie  Myer. 


317 


JOSEPH  ROTHSCHILD 


PERSONAL  popularity,  the  direct  re- 
sult of  a  magnetism  that  evidences 
itself  in  him  at  all  times,  lias  been 
the  keynote  of  the  success  of  Jo- 
seph Rothschild,  San  Francisco  attorney 
at  law,  not  only  in  his  profession  but 
in  tlie  business  field  and  in  public  life. 
He  has  the  g-ift  of  com- 
pelling attention.  I  n 
the  law  he  is  noted  for 
h  i  s  clear  analysis  of 
the  problems  involved, 
and  for  the  simple  but 
logical  manner  in 
which  he  presents  his 
cause  at  bar. 

Prom  his  earliest 
years  M  r  .  Rothschild 
has  enjoyed  that  popu- 
larity which  distin- 
guishes him.  He  was 
born  in  San  Francisco 
October  5,  1857,  son  of 
Henry  Rothschild  and 
Hannah  tMossheiml 
Rothschild,  and  after 
attending  tlie  public 
schools  entered  Yale 
College  from  which  he 
was  graduated  in  1S79. 
At  tlie  conclusion  of 
his  course  he  was  pre- 
sented with  the  Scales 
of  Justice,  a  distinctive 
Yale  honor,  as  the  most 
popular  member  of  his 
class. 

After  leaving  Yale 
Mr.  Rothschild  took  the  examination 
for  admittance  to  the  bar  in  Connect- 
icut and  was  granted  his  credentials. 
He  did  not  practice  there,  however, 
but  returned  to  San  Francisco  and  was 
admitted  before  the  Supreme  Court  of 
California.  In  1895  he  was  admitted  to 
practice  also  before  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States. 

The  professional  career  of  Mr.  Roth- 
schild has  been  in  all  branches  of  the 
civil  law.  He  has  specialized  in  com- 
mercial litigation,  and  today  is  con- 
sidered one  of  the  leading  authorities  in 
this  branch.  He  has  a  large  and  strong 
clientele,  largely  composed  of  impor- 
tant mercantile  firms,  some  of  which  he 
has  represented  as  general  counsel  for 
nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Since 
March,  1911,  he  has  been  senior  partner 
in  the  law  firm  of  Rothschild,' Rosen- 
heim,  Schooler  &  Miller. 

As  already  intimated,  Mr.  Rothschild 
does  not  believe  that  flowery  language, 
meaningless  phraseology,  strengthens  a 
cause  at  bar.  His  arguments  are  made 
up  of  facts  rather  than  of  surmises. 
And  how  forcefully  he  presents  these 
facts  may  be  gleaned  from  the  number 
of  notable  victories  he  has  won  in  the 
courts  of  California  and  the  United 
States. 

For  many  years  Mr.  Rothschild  has 
been  in  the  front  rank  of  public-spirited 
citizens  of  San  Francisco.  Following 
the  disastrous  fire  of  April,  190fi,  he  was 
one  of  those  who  determined  the  future 
of  the  Western  metropolis  by  beginning 
the    work    of    rebuilding    alrnost    before 


the  ashes  were  cold.  Not  a  moment  did 
he  waver  in  his  determination  to  help 
rehabilitate  the  city  of  his  birth.  Soon 
after  the  fire  he  helped  organize  the 
South  of  Market  Improvement  Asso- 
ciation, and  continuously  since  has 
served  as  its  president.  He  is  also  a 
member  of  the  execu- 
tive committee  of  the 
San  Francisco  League 
of  Improvement  Clubs 
and  of  the  Greater  San 
Francisco  Committee. 
Furthermore,  he  suc- 
ceeded A.  W.  Scott,  Jr., 
as  president  of  the  Ex- 
position Committee  of 
Improvement  Organi- 
zations, composed  of 
100  improvement  clubs 
of  San  Francisco, 
■\v  h  i  c  h  so  materially 
aided  the  Board  of  Di- 
rectors of  the  Panama- 
Pacific  International 
Exposition  to  make  the 
1915  world  exposition  a 
success.  In  other  posts, 
civic  and  political,  he 
has  distinguished  him- 
self. He  was  a  member 
of  the  San  Francisco 
Hoard  of  Education 
from  1889  to  1S90;  and 
was  president  of  the 
Democratic  County 
Committee,  and  vice- 
president  and  acting 
chairman  of  the  Democratic  State  Cen- 
tral Committee,  from  1902  to  1906.  On 
March  6,  1913,  he  was  elected  president 
of  the  San  Francisco  Tunnel  League,  a 
jiroperty  owners'  association  affected  by 
the  assessment  for  the  Fillmore  Street 
Tunnel,  which  was  expected  to  cost 
$4,000,000  to  $7,000,000.  The  organiza- 
tion defeated  the  construction  of  the 
tunnel  and  caused  to  be  abandoned  all 
proceedings   in   reference   thereto. 

Fraternally,  Mr.  Rothschild  has  been 
highly  honored,  especially  by  Jewish 
organizations.  He  is  past-grand  pres- 
ident of  the  Independent  Order  B'nai 
B'rith;  past-president  of  Unity  Lodge, 
B'nai  B'rith;  past-president  of  the  In- 
dependent Order  of  Free  Sons  of  Israel 
and  a  member  of  the  National  Grand 
Lodge  of  the  U.  S.;  past-president  of 
the  Board  of  Relief,  B'nai  B'rith,  and 
former  vice-president  of  the  Young 
Men's  Hebrew  Association.  He  was  del- 
egate in  1890  to  the  Constitution  Grand 
Lodge,  B'nai  B'rith,  at  Richmond,  Vir- 
ginia, and  there  was  elected  judge  of  the 
Court  of  Appeals  of  the  Grand  Lodge 
and  re-elected  in  1895  at  Cincinnati, 
Ohio,  serving  as  judge  of  that  court  for 
ten  years.  He  also  served  ten  years  as 
president  of  the  B'nai  B'rith  Hall  As- 
sociation. He  is  a  member  of  San  Fran- 
cisco chapter,  Royal  Arch  Masons;  Doric 
Lodge  No.  216.  F.  &  A.  M.;  past-presi- 
dent of  the  Native  Sons  of  the  Golden 
"West;  past-president  of  Golden  Shore 
Council  No.  5,  United  Friends  of  the  Pa- 
cific, and  belongs  to  the  Yale  and  Con- 
cordia clubs, 


.118 


tl 


ALFRED  C.  RULOFSON 


FEW  San  Franciscans  have  given  so 
mucli  time,  attention  and  money 
to  tlie  upbuilding  of  tlieir  city,  or 
liave  -woriced  so  consistently  for 
the  general  advancement  or  tne  com- 
munity, as  has  Alfred  C.  Rulof- 
son,  head  of  the  A.  C.  Rulofson 
Company,  general 
Western  sales  agent 
for  the  Pittsburgh 
Steel  Company  and  for 
other  industrial  con- 
cerns of  high  repute. 
In  his  many  years  in 
business  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, Mr.  Rulofson  has 
stood  in  the  fore- 
ground, as  a  layman, 
in  the  conduct  of 
municipal    affairs. 

Mr.  Rulofson  was 
born  October  26,  1S53, 
at  Sonora,  Tuolumne 
County,  Cal.,  son  of 
"William  H.  Rulofson 
and  Amelia  V.  (Currie) 
Rulofson,  and  was  ed- 
ucated in  tlie  public 
schools  of  Sonora  and 
San  Francisco  and  at 
Brayton's  College  in 
Oakland.  In  1S6S  he 
■w"^  e  n  t  directly  froin 
school  to  the  San 
Francisco  offices  of  the 
Russell  &  Erwin  Man- 
ufacturing Company, 
with  whom  he  spent 
the  next  two  years  learning  the  rudi- 
ments of  the  business.  In  18  lO  he  ac- 
cepted a  bigger  opportunity  offered  by 
the  firm  of  Baker  &  Hamilton.  So  in- 
defatigably  did  he  work  with  his  new 
employers  that  they  made  him  Imsiness 
manager,  a  position  he  held  until  1904. 
And  not  a  little  of  tlie  firm's  present 
standing  is  due  to  his  tireless  energy 
while    he    was    guiding   its   affaii's. 

Leaving  Baker  &  Hamilton,  Mr.  Ru- 
lofson organized  the  A.  C.  Rulofson 
Company  and  became  Western  sales 
agent  for  a  number  of  manufacturers, 
among  them  the  Harrisburg  Pipe  & 
Pipe  Bending  Company,  Illinois  Mallea- 
ble Iron  Company,  Thomas  Steel  Com- 
pany, McKeesport  Tin  Plate  Company, 
Standard  Chain  Company,  Bettcher 
Manufacturing  Company,  Osgood  Scale 
Company,  Edwards  Manufacturing 
Company,  Charles  Mori-ill  Company, 
Success  Manufacturing  Company  and 
Savage  Tire  Company.  At  present  he 
confines  himself  to  the  Pacific  Coast 
branch  of  the  Pittsburgh  Steel  Com- 
pany, one  of  the  largest  concerns  of 
its  kind  in  America,  the  Briar  Hill 
Steel  Company,  Illinois  Malleable  Iron 
Company  and  Standard  Chain  Com- 
pany. 

Mr.  Rulofson  was  a  pioneer  in  the 
metal  window  frame  industry,  which 
has  grown  to  huge  proportions,  and 
also  -was  one  of  the  first  to  deal  in 
fireproof  metal  doors.  His  Rulofson 
Underwriter  Fireproof  Metal  Windows, 
manufactured  along  with  steel  ofRce 
furniture  and  other  non-inflammable 
materials  by  the   Rulofson  Metal  Win- 


dow    Works,     are     recognized     every- 
where as  standard. 

Going    beyond    his    immediate    inter- 
ests,  Mr.    Rulofson    has   made    for   him- 
self   a    reputation    as    a    business    man 
and   as   a   developer   of    business    inter- 
ests.      For    several    years    he    occupied 
with    credit    the   presi- 
dency    of     the     Home 
Industry    League    6f 
California,    aiding 
in    making     gospel    of 
the     idea    of    "aid    me 
and     I    will    aid    you." 
Early    in    March,    1914, 
as    part    of    a    commis- 
sion   representing    the 
California        manufac- 
turers    and     exporters, 
he   sacrificed   time   and 
money  to  make  a  trade 
investigation     trip     t  o 
the    Orient,    although 
his   own    business    was 
ijenefited  in  no  way  by 
the    fund    of    valuable 
trade     information     he 
brought   back.      In  line 
with    his    "b  o  o  s  t  e  r" 
■   -t ,    ■         f_      ^      work   Mr.   Rulofson 
[H[^9^^|^   j      also    was    president    of 
^^r^  jKKk^      tbe     former     Manufac- 
^^\^^^^^Bt      turers'    and   Producers' 
jfl^^^^H      Association  and  of  the 
' 'J^I^H^^H      I^ncific    Coast    Jobbers' 
^^I^IJimillimilim      and        Manufacturers' 
Association,  and  was  a 
member    of    the    trafTic 
bureau     of     the     old     Merchants'     Ex- 
change. 

Mr.  Rulofson  is  the  second  of  his 
name  to  gain  wide  recognition  for  abil- 
ity in  San  Francisco.  His  father,  Wil- 
liam H.  Rulofson,  during  the  sixties 
and  early  seventies  was  prominent  here. 
He  came  around  the  Horn  from  St. 
John's,  Newfoundland,  in  1851,  and  aft- 
er a  year  or  so  of  mining  in  Sonora  re- 
turned across  the  plains  to  Missouri  to 
meet  his  wife,  who  had  journeyed  alone 
from  Newfoundland.  Returning  to 
California,  Mr.  Rulofson  established  in 
Sonora  the  first  permanent  photograph 
gallery  in  the  State.  He  came  to  San 
Francisco  in  1S61  and  resumed  photog- 
raphy under  the  firm  name  of  Brad- 
ley &  Rulofson.  On  one  occasion,  when 
taking  official  photographs  of  fortifica- 
tions for  the  Secretary  of  War,  he  was 
arrested  as  a  Confederate  spy  l^ut  was 
released.  Photos  taken  by  him  are 
still  extant,  bearing  the  statement  that 
in  his  gallery  was  the  only  passenger 
elevator  in  the  world  connected  with 
a    similar    institution. 

The  present  Mr.  Rulofson,  frater- 
nally, is  a  member  of  California  Lodge 
No.  1,  F.  &  A.  M. ;  California  Chapter 
No.  5,  R.  A.  M. ;  Golden  Gate  Comman- 
dery  No.  16,  K.  T.,  and  Islam  Temple 
of  Shriners.  He  also  belongs  to  the 
Rotary  Club  and,  with  his  wife,  is 
prominent  socially.  He  is  the  father 
of  five  children:  Alfred  C,  Jr.;  Mrs. 
Joseph  E.  Cutten  and  Mrs.  Carl  Platte 
of  San  Francisco;  Mrs.  Henry  Platte 
of  Portland  and  Mrs.  Zadie  Riggs  of 
Salem,    Oregon. 


319 


MILTON  L.  SCHMITT 


GREAT  responsibility  devolves 
upon  the  man  sent  to  the  State 
Legislature  to  become  his  neigh- 
bors' voice  in  the  framing  of  laws 
affecting  their  interests,  in  the  remedy- 
ing of  evils  and  in  the  promotion  of  tlu- 
general  welfare.  It  has  been  said  that 
to  become  a  legislator 
la  not  the  really  diffi- 
cult thing — it  is  to  se- 
cure re-election  on  thc 
strength  of  past  per- 
formances rather  than 
future    promises. 

Four  times  has 
Milton  L.  Schmitt  been 
sent  to  the  Legislature 
of  California  and  each 
re-election  has  placed 
the  mark  of  approva.l 
upon  his  record.  Ever 
in  the  forefront  in  the 
fi  g  h  t  for  adequate, 
sensible  laws,  he  has 
fathered  dozens  of 
bills  of  lasting  good 
through  the  tortuous 
course  to  the  signature 
of  the   chief  executive. 

Before  he  entered  his 
so  fruitful  public 
career  Mr.  Schmitt 
sought  and  attained 
success  in  the  practice 
of  law.  He  was  boi-n 
in  San  Francisco  Feb- 
ruary 4,  1877,  son  of  Maurice  Schmitt 
and  Ella  (Lewis)  Schmitt,  and  acquired 
his  education  in  the  public  schools,  the 
University  of  California  and  the  Hast- 
ings College  of  Law,  being  graduated 
from  the  latter  in  1899  and  gaining  ad- 
mittance to  the  bar.  He  entered  the 
offices  of  Naphtaly,  Freidenrich  & 
Ackerman  and  following  the  deaths  of 
Naphtaly  and  Ackerman  formed  witli 
Freidenrich  an  association  which  still 
persists.  He  has  gained  an  enviable 
reputation  in  general  civil  practice. 

In  1907  Mr.  Schmitt  was  a  delegate  to 
the  Republican  convention  in  San  Fi-an- 
cisco  and  in  1908  was  nominated  as 
Republican  candidate  for  the  State  As- 
sembly from  the  old  fortieth  district. 
He  secured  a  comfortable  majority  and 
held  office  from  January  1,  1909,  to  De- 
cember 31,  1910. 

Assemblyman  Schmitt  did  not  forget 
the  University  of  California.  As  chair- 
man of  the  Assembly  committee  on  uni- 
versities he  promoted  a  bill  increasing 
the  State  institution's  income  from  two 
cents  to  three  on  each  $100  valuation. 
Also  he  secured  passage  of  several  bills 
amending  the  McEnerney  act,  for  the 
restoration  of  land  titles  lost  in  the  San 
Francisco  fire  of  1906;  and  was  official 
California  representative  at  the  Alaska- 
Yukon-Pacific  Exposition  at  Seattle  in 
1909. 

In  1910  he  was  re-elected  from  the 
fortieth  district.  More  hard  work  fol- 
lowed. He  was  a  candidate  in  1911  for 
speaker    of    the    Assembly,     but     with- 


drew, to  his  friends'  disappointment 
In  February,  1911,  he  evolved  a  bill 
which,  had  it  passed,  would  have 
brought  three-quarters  of  a  million 
dollars  additional  automobile  tax  to 
the  State  annually.  As  chairman  of 
the  Assembly  committee  on  commerce 
and  navigation  he  had 

passed,  at  the  1911  ses- 

-  ^  sion,  bills  giving 
waterfront  control  to 
the  cities  of  Oakland, 
San  Diego,  Los  Angeles 
and  Long  Beach. 

The  I'anama-Paciflc 
Exposition  had  a 
champion  in  Mr. 
Schmitt  from  the  start. 
In  tlie  special  1910  Leg- 
islature session,  called 
to  raise  funds  for  the 
exposition,  he  intro- 
duced Assembly  Con- 
stitution Amendment 
No.  33,  giving  San 
Francisco  the  right  to 
bond  itself  for  $5,000,000 
for  fair  purposes.  This 
was  the  first  legisla- 
tion to  make  the  expo- 
sition a  possibility.  At 
the  same  session  he 
aided  in  the  passage  of 
a  measure  by  which  the 
State  was  empowered 
to  bond  itself  to  a  sim- 
ilar amount  for  the  same  cause. 

Following  tlie  I'eapportionment  of  the 
State,  Mr.  Sclimitt  was  elected  by  a 
majority  of  2,280  votes  to  the  Assembly 
from  the  newly  formed  thirty-first  dis- 
trict. He  gained  a  similar  victory  at 
the  1914  election  and  entered  upon  his 
fourth  term.  It  would  require  a  volume 
to  enumerate  all  his  fights  on  behalf  of 
the  people  of  San  Francisco. 

At  the  1915  session  Mr.  Schmitt  was 
particularly  active.  He  led  the  minor- 
ity's fight  against  the  administration's 
non-partisan  bills,  which,  designed  to 
wipe  out  political  party  lines  in  State 
affairs,  he  believed  to  be  the  initial  step 
toward  eliminating  parties  in  the  Na- 
tion. He  was  chosen  to  lead  this  fight 
by  Republican,  Democratic  and  Pro- 
gressive sympathizers  alike.  Mr. 
Schmitt  also  led  the  battle  against  the 
constitutional  amendment  eliminating 
constitutional  taxation  restrictions  and 
leaving  to  the  Legislature  the  fixing  of 
tax  rates  as  it  saw  fit.  Both  these 
measures  Mr.  Schmitt  considered  iniq- 
uitous. 

Maurice  Schmitt,  father  of  Milton  L. 
Schmitt,  was  a  partner  with  his  two 
lirothers  in  the  brokerage  fii  m  of  J.  L. 
Schmitt  &  Company,  which  at  one  time 
was  heavily  interested  in  the  Sutter 
Street  Railroad.  Milton  L.  Schmitt  was 
married  February  12,  1900,  to  Miss  Helen 
Alexander,  daughter  of  the  late  S.  O. 
Alexander,  founder  of  the  firm  now 
known  as  Hoffman,  Rothchild  &  Com- 
pany. 


320 


WILLIAM  SEA,  JR. 


THAT  there  is  a  limit  to  tlie  work 
a  man  can  accomplish  is  preLty 
generally  conceded.  Up  to  a  cer- 
tain point  he  can  hold  his  own, 
but  past  this  point  the  load  is  too  heavy 
for  his  shoulders  and  something  gives 
way — either  the  man  or  the  work,  but 
always  one  of  the  two. 

But  there  is  no  cer- 
tain limit  of  accom- 
plishment that  can  ap- 
ply to  all  men,  univer- 
sally. Were  there  such, 
we  would  all  of  us  rest 
at  a  certain  level  or 
beneath  it,  but  never 
above.  Ambition  and 
the  willingness  to  ex- 
pend brain  and  brawn 
in  advancement  would 
count  for  naught.  The 
work  limit  would  hurl 
us  back  with  the  dog- 
gedness  of  a  stone  wall, 
despite  ability  or  any 
other  distinctive  quali- 
fication we  might  pos- 
sess. 

Never  yet  has  a  man 
really  done  big  things 
without  work  and 
plenty  of  it.  And  it  is 
such  men  to  whose  ef- 
forts the  building  up 
of  the  commonwealth 
is  due. 

William  Sea,  Jr.,  attorney  at  law, 
has  before  him  one  of  the  brightest 
futures  of  any  young  man  in  Cali- 
fornia He  has  already  demonstrated 
that  what  he  goes  after  he  gets,  and 
it  is  no  idle  prediction  that  the  pas- 
sage of  years  and  the  concomitant 
opportunities  will  bring  out  even 
greater  displays  of  this  winning  at- 
tribute. 

A  native  of  San  Francisco,  born  here 
November  10,  18S3,  Mr.  Sea  is  the  son 
of  William  Sea  and  Anna  Helen 
(Jordan)  Sea.  On  his  mother's  side  he 
comes  of  old  English-Irish  stock,  one 
of  his  ancestors,  a  grand-uncle,  having 
been  knighted.  This  one  was  Sir  John 
Pope-Hennessy,  M.  P.,  of  Innesfallen 
Castle,  County  Cork,  Ireland.  He  pur- 
chased the  house  of  Sir  Walter  Scott 
with  the  intention  of  bringing  it  to 
America,  but  death  came  before  the 
plans  were  completed.  Mr.  Sea's  grand- 
uncle  on  his  father's  side  was  Premier 
of  Australia. 

After  attending  the  local  grammar 
schools  Mr.  Sea  entered  Lowell  High 
School,  and  following  his  graduation 
from  that  institution  he  entered 
Hastings  College  of  the  Law,  which 
awarded  him  his  degree  of  LL.B.  May 
13,  1908.  Prior  to  this,  however,  he  had 
advanced  so  far  in  his  legal  studies 
that  he  gained  admittance  to  the  bar 
January  18,  1907,  the  first  member  of 
his  class  to   secure   such   recognition. 

In    February,    1905,    along    about    the 


time  he  entered  Hastings  Law  College, 
Mr.  Sea  began  studying  in  the  oflfices 
of  the  well-known  firm  of  Maguire, 
Lindsay,  Wyckoff,  Houx  &  Barrett.  At 
first  he  was  merely  one  of  a  number  of 
clerks  but  following  the  fire  of  April 
18,  1906,  when  his  associates  refused  to 
stay  on  in  their  posi- 
tions, Mr.  Sea  became 
chief  and  only  clerk  of 
the  firm. 

From  1906  until  May, 
1910,  was  a  period  of 
real  labor  for  the 
young  law  student.  Not 
only  did  he  handle  the 
clerical  work  of  the 
law  association  prac- 
tically unassisted,  but 
he  carried  on  his  col- 
lege duties  and  even 
managed  to  find  time 
enough  to  practice  fol- 
lowing his  admittance 
to  the  bar  in  1907. 
Nights,  Sundays  and 
every  day  in  the  week 
and  every  week  in  the 
year  he  kept  plugging 
away  at  his  three-fold 
task,  astonishing  him- 
self as  well  as  others 
by  his  capacity  for  ac- 
complishment. It  was 
effort,  and  long-sus- 
tained effort,  but  it 
gave  Mr,  Sea  a  fine  groundwork  in  the 
law  and  for  this  reason  carried  its  own 
reward. 

After  leaving  the  office  of  Judge  Ma- 
guire and  his  associates,  Mr.  Sea  be- 
came assistant  secretary  of  the  Cham- 
ber of  Commerce.  In  line  with  this 
position  he  drafted  a  number  of  memo- 
rials to  the  State  Legislature,  to  Con- 
gress and  to  the  President,  the  last 
one  being  directed  to  President  Taft 
and  asking  that  a  fleet  of  war  vessels  be 
stationed  permanently  in  the  Pacific 
Ocean. 

Until  the  first  part  of  1911  Mr.  Sea 
remained  in  the  assistant  secretaryship. 
From  then  on  until  June,  1912,  he  was 
associated  in  the  practice  of  law  with 
Samuel  T.  Bush;  after  that  he  practiced 
independently  until  September,  1913, 
when  he  formed  the  firm  of  Sea  & 
Fallon  with  Joseph  P.  Fallon.  Since 
October,  1914,  Mr.  Sea  has  practiced 
alone,  almost  exclusively  in  the  Federal 
courts,  specializing  in  criminal  cases. 
He  has  been  admitted  to  practice,  how- 
ever, in  all  the  State  and  Federal  courts 
of  California. 

In  politics  Mr.  Sea  is  an  active  Repub- 
lican. In  1910,  at  the  first  primary  elec- 
tion under  the  new  law,  he  was  a  can- 
didate for  justice  of  the  peace,  but  al- 
though he  qualified,  was  defeated  at  the 
subsequent  election. 

Mr.  Sea  was  married  .lune  22,  1910, 
at  Mill  Valley  to  Lorena  Florence 
Barnes.  He  has  one  son,  William 
Francis  Sea. 


321 


FRANK  H.   SHORT 


THE  man  who  declared  that  he 
would  rather  be  "a  big  toad  in  a 
small  puddle  than  a  small  toad 
in  a  big-  puddle"  had  not  that 
self-confidence  so  necessary  if  one  is  to 
become  really  "big."  A  man  may  ac- 
quire neighborhood  fame.  It  is  quite 
another  tiling  to  ex- 
tend one's  sphere  to 
take  in  the  entire  na- 
tion— this  is  only  for. 
the  valiant,  who  has 
the  courage  to  try  to 
make  of  himself  "a  big 
toad   in   a   big   puddle." 

Frank  H.  Sliort — he 
probably  will  be  rec- 
ognized more  readily  if 
we  speak  of  him  as  the 
Honorable  Frank  H. 
Short  of  Fresno — has 
never  been  held  back 
in  his  career  by  fear. 
Aggressive,  capable,  a 
close  thinker  and  a  flu- 
ent speaker,  he  has 
locked  horns  with 
some  of  the  greatest 
statesmen  in  the  land 
on  questions  of  public 
import — a  n  d  success- 
fully. 

When  Mr.  Short 
stepped  forth  to  en- 
counter former  Presi- 
dent Theodore  Roose- 
velt and  Gifford  Pin- 
chot  in  public  debates 
on  water  conservation,  it  v^'as  with  a 
deep  and  first-hand  knowledge  of  his 
theme.  And  this  and  his  other  activities 
have  brought  him  national  recognition 
as  an  authority  on  tlie  constitutional 
law^  as  it  affects  the  relation  of  the  Fed- 
eral Government  to  the  rights  of  the 
sovereign    States. 

Judge  Short  was  born  September  12, 
1S62,  in  Shelliy  County,  Missouri,  son  of 
Joshua  Hamilton  Bell  Short,  who  came 
of  a  family  noted  in  the  literary  and 
legal  history  of  the  United  States,  and 
Emily  (Wharton)  Short.  After  attend- 
ing the  public  schools  of  Missouri  and 
Nebraska,  Mr.  Short  came  in  1881  to 
California.  For  some  time  he  taught 
school  in  Fresno,  as  he  had  done  in  Ne- 
braska,   meanwhile    studying    law. 

Judge  Short  was  only  twenty-two 
years  old  when,  in  1882,  he  was  elected 
Justice  of  the  Peace  in  Fresno.  He  was 
admitted  the  following  year  to  practice 
in  the  State  courts  and  in  1901  to  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 
For  a  decade  he  carried  on  a  general 
legal  practice,  gradually  broadening  his 
field  and  taking  part  in  civil  actions 
relating  to  irrigation,  mineral  rights 
and  light  and  power  and  other  corpo- 
rations. He  built  up  a  reputation  for 
keen  retort  and  strong  mental  grasp  of 
his  cases,  a  reputation  tha,t  has  since 
grown    amazingly. 

In  railroad  rate  litigation  Mr.  Short 
appeared  as  special  counsel  for  the 
State  of  California  in  the  Fresno  rates 
case  and  the  oil  rates  case  as  well.  He 
represented  the  oil  operators  of  Cali- 
fornia in   the   Scrippers   case,    involving 


title  to  a  large  area  of  oil-bearing  lands. 
This  took  him  to  Washington  to  appear 
before  the  United  States  Supreme  Court 
and  the  Interior  Department,  and  he 
won  a  notaljle  victory.  Later  Judge 
Short  went  to  Washington  as  chairman 
of  the  California  oil  men's  delegation 
and  it  was  largely 
due  to  his  persuasive 
powers  that  Congress 
in  1911  enacted  reme- 
d  i  a  1  legislation  per- 
mitting the  issuance  of 
patents  to  corporations 
as  assignees  of  oil  land 
locators. 

In  matters  pertain- 
ing to  water  and  irri- 
gation, Judge  Short 
has  long  been  active. 
As  counsel  for  Miller 
&  Lux  and  other  corpo- 
rations  he  has  ap- 
peared in  the  leading 
water  cases  in  the  Cal- 
ifornia courts. 

Judge   Sliort  has  op- 
posed    radical     conser- 
vation   movements    for 
the    past    fifteen    years. 
He   has   debated   before 
several    large    public 
meetings,  including  the 
Irrigation      Congress 
and    the   Conservation 
Congress    of    1910.      He 
debated  w^ith  Roosevelt 
before      the      Common- 
wealth   Club    of    San    Francisco    in    1911 
and   caused   the   former  president   to   be 
visil:)ly  disconcerted. 

Judge  Short  is  an  active  Republican. 
He  has  been  a  delegate  to  most  of  the 
State  Republican  conventions  since  1SS4 
and  to  the  national  conventions  of  1896 
and  1904,  and  lias  represented  the  party 
in  many  other  ways  without  seeking 
any  remunerative  offices.  He  was  one 
of  the  three  representatives  from  Cali- 
fornia in  the  Governors'  Conference  of 
1908  at  the  White  House  in  Washington. 
He  has  taken  part  in  the  National  Geo- 
graphic Society,  National  Civic  Feder- 
ation and  Economic  League  and  was 
commissioner  of  Yosemite  National 
Park   from    1S08    to   1908. 

Judge  Short  is  interested  in  various 
California  corporations  as  general 
counselor,  director  or  officer,  being 
general  counsel  for  the  San  Joaquin 
Light  &  Power  Corporation  and  its  al- 
lied corporations,  Fresno  Water  Co., 
Fresno  Canal  &  Irrigation  Co.,  Con- 
solidated Canal  Co.  and  others;  general 
counselor  and  director  for  Fresno  Na- 
tional Bank,  Fresno  County  Abstract 
Co.,  Mount  Diablo  Oil  Co.,  Bakersfleld 
&  Fresno  Oil  Co.,  Netherlands  Oil  Co., 
San  Juan  Oil  Co.,  401  Orchard  &  Land 
Co.  of  Medford,  Oregon,  and  California 
Raisin    Growers'   Association. 

He  has  been  a  member  of  the  Ma- 
sonic fraternity  for  many  years  and 
belongs  to  the  Fresno  Country,  Fres- 
no Sequoia  and  Fresno  Commercial 
Clubs,  and  Pacific  Union,  Boliemian 
and  Union  League  clubs  of  San  Fran- 
cisco. 


322 


I 


FRANK  R.   SHORT 


IT  takes  all  sorts  of  men  to  make  a 
world.  Some  remain  in  the  place 
where  they  were  born,  grow  up 
with  it,  shape  their  careers  to  it 
and  at  length  die  in  it,  perfectly  con- 
tented with  their  rather  blase  life.  For 
others  there  is  ever  a  sensation  of  being 
crowded  if  they  at- 
tempt to  remain  in 
one  community.  The 
world  is  their  stamp- 
ing ground,  and  when 
their  career  draws  to 
a  close  they  have  the 
satisfaction  that 
comes  with  a  life  well 
spent. 

Such  a  man  as  the 
latter  sort  is  Prank  R. 
Short,  expert  mining- 
engineer  and  world- 
traveler.  Prom  h  i  s 
main  offices,  now  lo- 
cated in  the  Hobart 
building  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, he  flits  from 
one  place  to  an- 
other, as  his  duties  call 
him,  and  is  as  much 
at  home  in,  say,  Peru, 
as  he  is  in  any  part 
of    the    United    States. 

Born  in  San  Francisco,  August  8,  1876, 
Mr.  Short  is  the  son  cf  Josiah  M.  Short 
and  Sarah  (Blanchard)  Short.  His  fa- 
ther came  across  the  plains  in  1850  from 
Illinois  and  was  well  known  in  this 
city  in  the  early  days  as  a  miner,  mer- 
chant and  capitalist. 

The  early  schooling  of  the  present 
Mr.  Short  was  obtained  in  the  public 
schools,  after  which  he  for  some  years 
attended  Napa  Academy  at  Napa.  In 
1894  he  entered  Stanford  University, 
specializing  in  geology  and  mining,  and 
was  graduated  in  1S9S  with  the  degree 
of  A.  B.  His  interest  had  been  directed 
toward  mining  as  a  career  by  his 
father's  success  in  the  same  sort  of 
pursuit. 

Almost  at  once,  after  he  left  the  uni- 
versity, Mr.  Short  went  abroad.  For 
two  years  he  traveled  extensively  over 
New  Zealand,  Australia  and  South  Afri- 
ca, examining  properties  of  a  general 
mining  nature.  In  1900,  finding  himself 
in  South  Africa  with  the  Boer  War  in 
full  blast,  he  joined  in  the  excitement 
by  aligning  himself  with  the  forces  of 
the  Colonial  defense.  At  first  he  was  a 
scout,  but  later  on  his  commanders 
placed  him  in  charge  of  transportation 
and  supply  stations  for  the  British 
army.  He  did  not  lack  for  adventures. 
On  one  occasion  he  was  made  pris- 
oner by  Theron,  a  Boer  comman- 
dant,   but   after   a   few    days   succeeded 


in     escaping    and     rejoining     his     com- 
rades. 

For  about  a  year  Mr.  Short  remained 
with  the  Colonial  forces.  Then  he  went 
to  the  Transvaal  and  resumed  his  pro- 
fession of  mining  engineer.  He  was 
overseer  in  various  gold  mines  until 
1907,  when  he  re- 
turned to  San  Fran- 
cisco and  opened  of- 
fices. Since  that  time  he 
has  carried  on  the  busi- 
ness of  consulting  min- 
ing engineer.  He  has 
remained  independ- 
ent in  his  practice,  but 
his  clientele  is  large 
and  he  finds  his  serv- 
ices much  in  demand. 
From  1907  until  1912, 
though  he  made  San 
Francisco  his  h  e  a  d  - 
quarters,  Mr.  Short 
traveled  extensively  in 
New  Zealand,  Austra- 
1  i  a  ,  South  America, 
Mexico,  Canada,  Yukon 
Territory,  Alaska,  and 
throughout  the  West- 
ern United  States.  He 
specialized  in  the  ex- 
amination of  aurifer- 
ous lands  and  in  gold  dredging. 

The  revolution  in  Mexico  drove  him 
out  of  that  country  in  1912.  He  was 
forced  to  flee  for  his  life  from  the  out- 
law bands  that  were  terrorizing  the 
country.  A  part  of  his  party  was  cap- 
tured, the  natives  slain  and  the  others 
robbed  of  their  every  possession.  Sub- 
sequently, in  1912  and  1913,  Mr.  Short 
was  technical  adviser  to  the  Natomas 
Consolidated  on  its  properties  near 
Sacramento. 

During  the  past  four  years  Mr.  Short 
has  done  considerable  work  in  various 
parts  of  the  world  for  the  Guggenheim 
interests,  particularly  the  Yukon  Gold 
Company,  and  has  recently  traveled  ex- 
tensively in  Alaska  for  this  concern. 
He  has  just  returned  from  a  trip  to 
Peru,  during  which  he  investigated  the 
development  of  a  placer  mine  for  gold 
operations.  His  journeys  also  have 
taken  him  to  Europe,  particularly  to 
England  and  Prance,  although  not  in 
a  professional  capacity.  At  times,  also, 
he  has  varied  his  work  by  operating 
gold  mines  on  his  own  account. 

By  reason  of  his  extensive  traveling 
Mr.  Short  has  found  little  time  to 
mingle  in  social  or  fraternal  activities. 
He  confines  himself,  in  fact,  in  this  re- 
gard to  membership  in  the  San  Fran- 
cisco Press  Club  and  .the  American 
Institute  of  Mining  Engineers,  and  in 
the  Masonic  order. 


323 


DR.   THOMAS  E.  SHUMATE 


IN  three  separate  and  distinct  fields 
of  endeavor — in  tiie  profession  of 
medicine,  in  tlie  drug  business  and  in 
public  life— has  the  name  of  Dr. 
Thomas  E.  Shumate  come  to  be  familiar 
to  the  people  of  San  Francisco.  l'"'or 
the  more  tlian  a  quarter  of"  a  century 
that  has  passed  since 
he  first  came,  as  a 
youth,  to  the  Western 
metropolis,  has  yielded 
well. 

Twenty-seven  years 
ago  Dr.  Shumate  was  a 
clerk  in  a  San  Fran- 
cisco drus  store,  at- 
tending tlie  College  of 
Pharmacy  at  night. 
Today  he  is  a  physician 
with  a  large  and  flour- 
ishing practice,  owner 
of  the  best  retail  drug 
business  west  of  the 
Rocky  mountains,  and 
in  his  second  term  as 
member  of  the  Board 
of  Police  Commission- 
ers. 

Dr.  Shumate  was 
born  April  1,  1871,  at 
St.  Louis,  Missouri.  His 
father  was  Charles  H. 
Shumate,  stock  raiser 
and  dealer,  and  his 
mother  Cornelia  Hicks 
(McKaney)  Shumate. 
The  youth  secured  the 
groundwork  of  his  ed- 
ucation in  the  St.  Louis  public  schools, 
and  in  1888,  immediately  following  his 
graduation  from  the  West  Side  High 
School,  St.  Louis,  came  west  to  San 
Francisco. 

Having  learned  in  his  high  school 
days  that  chemistry  was  his  forte.  Dr. 
Shumate  resolved  to  take  up  pharmacy 
and,  perhaps,  later  on,  medicine.  He 
did  not  come  to  San  Francisco  in  a  pri- 
vate car;  nor  did  he  put  up  at  the  best 
hotel  when  he  got  here.  Rather,  the 
first  thing  he  did  was  to  look  for 
a  job.  He  found  one,  in  a  drug 
store. 

From  7  o'clock  in  the  morning  until 
6  o'clock  he  waited  on  the  trade  and 
otherwise  kept  himself  busy.  After 
dinner  he  took  his  books  and  spent 
the  evening  at  the  College  of  Phar- 
macy, and  at  night  he  slept  in  the 
store,  not  only  for  convenience  sake, 
but  also  that  he  might  be  on  hand 
bright  and  early  in  the  morning  to 
attend  to  business.  This  lasted  for 
two  years  and  in  1890  he  was  grad- 
uated from  the  College  of  Pharmacy, 
w^hich  is  an  adjunct  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  California,  with  the  degree  of 
Ph.   G. 

Dr.  Shumate's  next  step  w^as  to  open 
a  drug  store — a  very  small  drug  store, 
by  the  way,  but  much  larger  now — at 
Sutter  and  Devisadero  streets.  It  re- 
mains today  No.  1  of  his  chain  of  sim- 
ilar stores.  Once  his  drug  business  w^as 
going    to    his    satisfaction    he    enrolled 


in  Cooper  Medical  College.  During  the 
day  he  attended  at  the  college,  then 
until  11  o'clock  at  night  he  worked  in 
liis  store.  From  the  latter  hour  on 
\intil  he  finally  sought  his  bed,  he  car- 
lied   on   his   studies. 

It  was  a  hard  grind,  but  it  brought 
its  reward,  for  the 
drug  store  made  possi- 
ble his  attendance  at 
college,  and  his  studies 
by  lamp  light  gained 
for  him  graduation,  in 
1894,  with  the  degree 
of  M.  D. 

The  same  year  Dr. 
Shumate  opened  offices 
and  began  practicing 
his  latest  profession. 
A  few  months  later 
there  occurred  a  va- 
cancy in  the  position 
of  surgeon  to  the  San 
Francisco  Police  De- 
P  a  r  t  m  e  n  t ,  and  Dr. 
Shumate  secured  the 
appointment.  From 
18  9  4  until  1900  he 
served  as  the  depart- 
ment surgeon.  During 
this  period  he  uncon- 
sciously prepared  him- 
self for  the  office  he 
now  holds.  He  kept 
his  eyes  open  to  the 
manner  in  which  the 
affairs  of  the  depart- 
ment were  conducted, 
and  also  came  into  close  touch  with 
the  members  of  the  force,  to  most  of 
whom  he  is  known  personally.  Tlie 
result  was  that  when  James  Woods  re- 
signed froiu  the  Police  Commission 
in  1912,  and  Mayor  Rolph  was  called 
upon  to  appoint  his  successor,  he  chose 
Dr.  Shumate  for  the  place.  Dr.  Shumate, 
said  the  mayor,  was  in  sympathy  with 
the  administration  and  was  a  man  in 
every  waj'  qualified   to  serve. 

After  serving  out  Commissioner 
Woods'  unexpired  term  Dr.  Shumate 
was  reappointed  and  is  now  in  his  sec- 
ond term  as  a  member  of  the  Board. 
Dr.  Shumate  has  accomplished  much 
good  for  the  Police  Department.  He 
helped  bring  about  a  recognition  of 
seniority  of  service  and  he  has  aided  in 
making  San  Francisco  a  better  place  to 
live,  but  without,  at  the  same  time,  for- 
getting to  be  broadminded  and  tolerant. 
Seven  high-class  drug  stores  are  now 
being  conducted  in  San  Francisco  under 
the  name  of  Shumate's  Pliarmacy,  Inc. 
All  are  enjoying  a  high  class  of  trade. 
In  addition  to  his  other  activities  Dr. 
Shumate  is,  and  has  been  for  several 
years,  a  director  of  St.  Francis  hospital. 
Dr.  Shumate  was  married  in  1899  in 
San  Francisco  to  Freda  Ortmann  and 
is  the  father  of  three  children:  Ort- 
mann, aged  thirteen;  Albert,  ten,  and 
"Virginia,  four.  He  belongs  to  the  South- 
ern, Olympic  and  Press  Clubs  of  San 
Francisco  and  also  the  Independent  Or- 
der of  Odd  Fellows. 


324 


ROMULO   MELITON   FRANCISCO    SOTO 


A  VARIED  experience  in  all 
branches  of  the  law  has  been 
gained  by  Romulo  Meliton  Fran- 
cisco Soto  in  the  thirty-tive  years 
and  more  that  he  has  practiced  liis  pro- 
fession. Always  a  close  student,  he  lie- 
lieves  that  a  man  must  apply  himself 
constantly  to  further- 
ing: his  knowledge  if  he 
is  to  advance  in  his 
chosen  w^ork.  And  such 
application  is  the  se- 
cret of  Mr.  Soto's  own 
success. 

Mr.  Soto  was  born 
April  1,  1855,  in  Mon- 
terey County,  Califor- 
nia, the  son  of  Jose 
Manuel  Soto  and  Maria 
(Perez)  Soto.  His  fa- 
ther was  the  owner  of 
the  Santa  Rita  ranch, 
a  Mexican  grant  of  sev- 
eral thousand  acres  in 
Monterey  County,  and 
was  also  interested 
with  H.  M.  Newhall  in 
another  large  ranch  in 
Los  Angeles  County, 
where  the  town  of 
Newhall  n  o  w^  stands. 
The  elder  Soto  came  to 
California  in  1849  from 
Peru,  his  birthplace, 
and  was  very  success- 
ful in  both  ranching 
and  the  mercantile 
business  until  the  dis- 
astrous dry  year,  1876, 
practically  his  entire 
present  Mr.  Soto's  mother  ^vas  a 
native-born  Californian,  of  Spanish 
origin. 

Following  his  graduation  from  Santa 
Clara  College  at  Santa  Clara  June  5, 
1S76.  with  the  degree  of  A.  B.,  Mr.  Soto 
entered  Harvard  Law  School,  which 
awarded  him  the  degree  of  LL.  B.,  June 
27,  1878.  It  was  soon  after  he  went  to 
Harvard  that  his  father  met  with  his 
financial  reversal,  but  this  did  not  in- 
terfere witli  the  completion  of  the  law 
course. 

For  about  a  year  after  obtaining  his 
degree  Mr.  Soto  was  in  the  offices  of 
Winans,  Belknap  &  Godoy  of  San  Fran- 
cisco, to  gain  practical  experience.  He 
was  admitted  to  the  bar  July  16,  1879, 
and  the  following  December  commenced 
practice  at  Salinas,  Monterey  County.  He 
continued  to  practice  independently  un- 
til 1883,  when  he  formed  n  partnership 
with  S.  L.  Cutter  under  the  firm  name 
of  Cutter  &  Soto.  This  partnership  was 
dissolved  when,  in  1S84,  Mr.  Soto  was 
elected  District  Attorney  of  Monterey 
County  on  the  Republican  ticket.  He 
served  during  this  term,  but  since  that 
time  he  has  not  been  active  in  politics 
nor  has  he  again  sought  office,  disliking 
the  idea  of  being  expected  to  carry  out 
the  plans  of  someone  else. 

Removing  from  Salinas  to  San  Fran- 
cisco in  August,  1887,  Mr.  Soto  entered 
into  partnership  with  James  Herrmann 


w^hen    he 
fortune. 


lost 
The 


under  the  name  of  Herrmann  &  Soto, 
and  continued  in  a  general  practice  such 
as  lie  had  had  in  Monterey  County.  He 
had  much  work  in  tlie  probate  courts, 
but  appeared  little  in  criminal  matters. 
In  late  years  Mr.  Soto  has  paid  partic- 
ular attention  to  matters  relating  to 
land  titles  involving 
stieet  improvement  as- 
sessments, tax  titles 
and  irrigation  district 
assessments,  i  n  Cali- 
fornia and  Nevada.  For 
years  h  e  represented 
property  owners  in 
contesting  the  issuance 
of  bonds  for  street  im- 
provements, and  lately 
he  has  represented  a 
number  of  contractors 
in  matters  relating  to 
the  improvement  o  f 
streets.  He  is  consid- 
ered a  n  authority  on 
such  phases  of  the  law. 
Together  with 
George  H.  Maxwell,  Mr. 
Soto  has  charge  of  irri- 
gation litigation  cov- 
ering a  period  of  eight 
years  and  involving  ten 
or  twelve  irrigation 
districts  extending 
from  Marysville  as  far 
south  as  San  Diego.  He 
represented  property 
owners  that  were  con- 
testing bonds  and  the 
taxes  levied  to  pay  them.  Finally,  in 
1902,  the  United  States  Supreme  Court 
ruled  in  the  Tulare  Irrigation  District 
case  adversely  to  the  property  owners 
and,  on  the  conclusion  that  it  was  an 
almost  impossible  task  to  invalidate 
bonds  issued  by  the  districts,  Mr.  Soto 
abandoned    the    litigation. 

Another  notable  litigation  in  which 
Mr.  Soto  has  taken  part  is  that  of  B.  A. 
Gamble  et  al  vs.  the  Silver  Peak  Mining 
Co.,  which  has  been  before  the  courts 
since  1896.  Mr.  Soto,  John  W.  Dorsey 
and  associates  came  into  the  case  in 
1903  to  represent  the  plaintiffs.  The 
suit  is  to  enforce  ar  option  contract 
for  the  purchase  of  the  Silver  Peak 
mine,  claimed  by  some  to  be  worth  sev- 
eral million  dollars,  and  by  others  to  be 
almost  valueless.  Opposed  to  Mr.  Soto 
and  his  associates  was  Rush  Taggart, 
well  known  as  Chief  Counsel  for  the 
Western  LTnion  Telegraph  Co.  The  suit 
is  still  before  the  United  States  courts 
and    the    district   court    of   Nevada. 

The  firm  of  Herrmann  &  Soto  was  dis- 
solved in  1890,  and  from  1893  until  1894 
Mr.  Soto  was  in  partnership  with  George 
H.  Maxwell  and  John  "W.  Dorsey  as 
Maxwell,  Dorsey  &  Soto.  Since  then 
Mr.   Soto  has  practiced  alone. 

Mr.  Soto  holds  membership  in  the 
Holy  Name  Society,  Gentleman's 
Sodality  of  St.  Ignatius  Church,  and  St. 
Anthony's  Guild  of  Old  St.  Mary's 
Church.  He  was  married  October  22,  1879, 
in  Boston  to  Susan  Rosalinda  Duffy. 


GEORGE  HILL   STODDARD 


WHEN  George  Hill  Stoddard, 
general  manager  of  the  Asso- 
ciated Supply  Company,  started 
out  to  put  to  use  the  knowledge 
he  had  gained  in  school  and  college,  he 
saw  an  opportunity — and  grasped  it.  He 
made  good  until  he  saw  a  better  oppor- 
tunity, then  grasped 
that.  And  he  continued 
to  keep  his  eyes  open 
and  take  advantage  of 
chances  until  today  he 
is  one  of  the  youngest 
men  in  the  country  in 
a  position  such  as  he 
fills. 

Born  August  19,  18S1, 
at  Grass  Valley,  Cali- 
fornia, Mr.  Stoddard 
is  the  son  of  Walter 
Scott  Stoddard,  one  of 
the  builders  o  f  t  h  e 
Nevada  County  Narrow 
Gauge  Railway  from 
Colfax  to  Nevada  City, 
and  of  Harriet  Caroline 
(Hill)  Stoddard.  His 
paternal  grandfather, 
Alexander  Stoddard, 
was  prominent  in  the 
early  mining  days  of 
Grass  Valley  as  member 
of  the  banking  andgen- 
eral  merchandise  firm 
of  Campbell  &  Stod- 
dard. His  maternal 
grandfather,  George  W.  Hill,  also  was 
a    well-known    Grass   Valley   pioneer. 

Mr.  Stoddard  attended  the  public 
schools  of  Grass  Valley,  and  later  those 
of  San  Francisco  for  a  short  time. 
Subsequently  he  went  to  school  at  Los 
Gatos,  Portland  and  Seattle  and  after 
a  course  in  Belmont  Military  Academy 
entered  the  University  of  California  in 
1903.  He  attended  the  university  two 
years,  making  the  College  of  Commerce 
his  major,  and  in  1905  went  abroad  to 
round  out  his  education.  His  route 
took  him  to  New  Orleans,  Cuba,  Florida, 
New  York,  then  to  the  Mediterranean 
sea,  with  stopovers  at  Gibraltar  and 
points  in  North  Africa,  then  Naples, 
Rome,  Venice,  Milan  and  other  cities  of 
Europe,  until  the  San  Francisco  fire  of 
April,  1906,  brought  him  home.  In 
December,  1906,  he  made  another  trip, 
this  time  to  the  City  of  Mexico,  where 
he  continued  his  study  of  trade  con- 
ditions generally. 

Upon  his  return  to  California  Mr. 
Stoddard  secured  a  position  with  the 
Associated  Oil  Company  as  inspector  in 
the  construction  of  its  pipe  line  from 
Bakersfleld  to  Martinez.  He  saw  in  this 
field  a  promising  future  and  forthwith 
set  out  to  learn  everything  he  could  of 
the  oil  industry,  not  only  of  that  which 
directly  concerned  him  and  his  in- 
spectorship, but  all  the  rest.  In  the 
year  that  he  held  his  first  post  he  ac- 
quired a  fund  of  that  knowledge  which 
later  on  was  to  prove  of  great  use  to 
him   in   his  advancement. 


The  Associated  Supply  Company  was 
organized  in  June,  1908,  as  a  subsidiary 
cf  the  Associated  Oil  Company.  The 
concern  handles  supplies  for  drilling 
and  operating  oil  wells,  does  all  the 
necessary  buying  and  selling  and  main- 
tains in  the  oil  fields  six  stores,  each 
of  which  carries  com- 
plete well  supplies,  in 
eluding  boilers,  casing 
and  pipe. 

When  he  started  in 
with  the  Associated 
Supply  Company  Mr. 
Stoddard  was  given  a 
clerkship  in  the  pur- 
chasing department.  In 
1911  he  was  taken  into 
the  sales  department 
as  salesman,  his  work 
being  divided  between 
the  office  and  the  oil 
fields.  Just  two  years 
later,  in  June,  1913,  he 
was  made  general  man- 
^^^  ager    of    the    company, 

^^^  Nk  his  supervision  includ- 

Bjr       ML  ''IS     hoth     purchasing 

m       ^^^^^!       andsellingdepartments 
r       ^^^^Bhj       and,    in    short,    all    the 
^^^^^^M       concern's    affairs. 
^^^^^^H  The    oil    industry    is 

^..^^^^^^^H       one    of    the  im- 

j^^^^^^KM  portant  in  California, 
""■^^^^^^^^^  and  the  Associated  Oil 
Company,  with  its  sub- 
sidiary, is  one  of  the  largest  concerns  of 
its  kind  in  the  State.  To  conduct  success- 
fully the  affairs  of  such  a  huge  corpo- 
ration, to  provide  it  with  the  necessary 
commodities  for  the  operation  of  its 
wells  and  to  buy  and  sell  such  commodi- 
ties to  others,  involves  a  vast  amount  of 
detail  work.  Mr.  Stoddard  is  in  a 
position  where  he  must  have  all  these 
details  at  his  fingers'  ends,  ready  on 
the  spur  of  the  moment  to  decide  im- 
portant questions  pertaining  to  the 
business,  and  ever  on  the  lookout  for 
expanding  and  building  up  the  con- 
cern's trade.  Perhaps  it  is  the  very 
nature  of  his  duties  that  makes  him 
successful  in  the  managership  of  the 
company  where  an  older  man  might 
fail. 

Mr.  Stoddard  takes  no  interest  in 
politics,  nor  is  he  able,  what  with  the 
press  of  other  business,  to  give  much 
of  his  time  to  strictly  civic  matters. 
Socially,  he  belongs  to  the  University 
of  California  Club  and  since  1909  has 
been  a  member  of  the  Bohemian  Club. 
He  is  a  thirty-second  degree  Mason, 
having  joined  Madison  lodge  No.  23  at 
Grass  Valley  when  a  young  man. 

In  June,  1908,  just  before  he  became 
identified  with  the  Associated  Supply 
Company,  Mr.  Stoddard  was  married  to 
Miss  Helen  Elizabeth  Bates,  daughter 
of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Eugene  J.  Bates  of  1981 
Pacific  avenue,  San  Francisco.  The 
couple  have  one  son,  Eugene  Bates 
Stoddard,  now  three  years  old. 


326 


EDWARD   J.   TALBOTT 


CONTRARY  to  popular  belief,  the 
success  or  ability  of  an  attorney 
at  law  cannot  be  gauged  by  the 
number  of  sensational  legal  bat- 
tles in  which  he  appears.  Were  tliis  so, 
some  of  California's  foremost  lawyers 
would  be  accorded  far  less  recognition 
than  they  really  de- 
serve, for  their  work, 
thougli  extremely  im- 
portant, is  not  of  a  na- 
ture to  bring  them 
much  into  the  lime- 
light. 

O  n  e  of  those  attor- 
neys whose  practice  is 
largely  quiet,  but  who 
none  the  less  has  an 
enviable  reputation  for 
ability  in  his  cliosen 
profession,  is  Edward 
J.  Talbott.  He  has  no 
practice  to  speak  of  in 
the  criminal  courts, 
but  confines  himself  to 
a  general  civil  prac- 
tice, largely  in  probate 
and  corporation  mat- 
ters, which  are  of  more 
vital  interest  to  those 
directly  concerned  than  to  the  public 
at  large. 

Unlike  some  otliers,  Mr.  Talbott  did 
not  decide  fully  upon  the  law  as  a 
career  until  he  was  half  way  through 
the  university  and  until  after  he  had 
investigated  fully  the  field  and  his  own 
fitness  for  entrance  to  it.  He  was 
born  August  9,  1878,  at  Lompoc,  Santa 
Barbara  County,  California,  the  son  of 
William  L.  Talbott,  a  farmer  and  stock 
raiser,  and  Amelia  (Irwin)  Talbott.  He 
is  of  Irish  stock,  with  several  noted  jur- 
ists   among    his    maternal    ancestors. 

After  traversing  the  graminar  schools 
at  Lompoc  Mr.  Talbott  entered  high 
school,  from  which  he  was  graduated  in 
the  spring  of  1896.  In  August  of  the 
same  year  he  matriculated  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  California,  finishing  in  May, 
1900,  with  the  degree  of  B.  S.  By  this 
time  he  had  resolved  to  become  a  legal 
practitioner.  Accordingly  he  attended 
Hastings  College  of  the  Law  for  two 
years  and  in  May,  1902,  was  admitted  to 
practice  before  the  Supreme  Court  of 
California. 

Mr.  Talbott  at  once  began  practicing 
in  San  Francisco  in  association  vi^ith 
William  J.  Herrin.  The  partnership 
continued  until  Herrin's  death  in  Octo- 


ber,  1913,   since   which  time  Mr.  Talbott 
has  practiced  alone. 

For  the  past  ten  years  Mr.  Talbott  has 
been  one  of  the  attorneys  in  the  litiga- 
tion over  the  estate  of  Thomas  Bell, 
one  of  the  longest  drawn  out  and  hard- 
est fought  cases  in  California's  legal 
history.  It  has  been 
before  the  probate 
court  for  twenty-three 
years  and  it  probably 
will  be  several  years 
more  before  the  vari- 
ous claims  to  the  prop- 
erty   are    adjudicated. 

Thomas  Bell  was  at 
one  time  the  wealth- 
iest man  on  the  Pacific 
Coast.  H  i  s  property 
aggregated  some  $20,- 
000,000  in  value,  but  he 
lost  it  in  one  way  and 
another,  principally  by 
unwise  investments, 
until  at  the  time  of  his 
death  in  1892  he  was 
worth  only  about  $200,- 
000,  with  outstanding 
debts  totaling  twice 
as  much.  Following 
Bell's  death,  however,  oil  was  discov- 
ered on  his  land.  By  taking  advan- 
tage of  this  the  administrators  have 
built  up  the  estate  once  more  until 
today  it  represents  something  like 
$5,000,000. 

Mr.  Talbott  has  been  interested  as  an 
attorney  in  several  other  good  sized 
estates,  which  he  has  settled  in  one  way 
or  another  to  the  satisfaction  of  his 
clients.  He  also  is  general  counsel  for 
a  number  of  corporations,  among  them 
tlTe  San  Francisco  Sulphur  Company, 
which  does  practically  all  of  the  import- 
ing and  exporting  of  sulphur  that  is 
carried  on  in  San  Francisco.  In  this, 
as  well  as  in  other  concerns,  Mr.  Tal- 
bott is  likewise  interested  in  a  financial 
way. 

In  politics  Mr.  Talbott  is  a  stanch 
Republican.  He  has  neither  sought  nor 
held  office,  but  has  preferred  to  do  his 
work  for  others  or  for  the  party's  gen- 
eral good.  He  does  not  find  time  to  be- 
long to  social  clubs,  although  he  is  a 
member  of  the  B.  P.  O.  Elks  as  well  as 
of  the  American  Geographical  Society. 
Mr.  Talbott  was  married  in  1906  in 
San  Francisco  to  Lillie  V.  Rose.  He  is 
the  fatiier  of  one  child,  a  daughter,  now 
seven  years  old. 


28 


327 


JOHN  E.   D.   TRASK 


w 


HAT  any  city  needs,  more 
even  than  a  propaganda  for 
higher  morality,  more  even 
than  political  reform  or 
municipal  ownership  of  public  utilities, 
is  an  appreciation  of  art  and  art  work — 
without  which  life  is  dry  and  sordid 
indeed." 

These  few  words  are 
the  key  to  the  phi- 
losophy of  John  E.  D. 
T  r  a  s  k,  Director-in- 
Chief  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Fine  Arts  of 
the  Panama-Pacific 
Exposition.  He  is  an 
art  connoisseur,  one 
might  say  an  executive 
artist;  and  his  peculiar 
aim  in  life  is  to  draw 
together  and  amal- 
gamate the  interests  of 
the  artist  himself  and 
the  art  lover,  to  weld  a 
bond  of  sympathy  be- 
tween   them. 

In    how    far    he    has 
succeeded  in  doing  this 
is    testified    to    by    the 
words       on       a       great 
square     of     parchment 
presented  to  him  upon 
his     resignation     froni 
the  managership  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Academy 
of  Fine  Arts  to  accept 
the  honor  offered  him  by  the  Exposition. 
This     testimonial,     dated     Philadelphia, 
February    4,     1913,    and    signed    by    86 
artists,  is  worded: 

"To  John  E.  D.  Trask  on  the  eve  of 
his  retirement  from  the  office  of  Secre- 
tary and  Manager  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Academy  of  the  Fine  Arts.  We,  the 
undersigned  members  of  the  artistic 
fraternity,  desire  to  express  our  appre- 
ciation of  his  services  to  the  cause  of 
American  Art;  of  his  loyalty  and  un- 
selfish devotion  to  the  best  interests 
of  the  Pennsylvania  Academy  of  the 
Fine  Arts;  of  his  sympathetic  under- 
standing and  support  of  the  artistic 
spirit  in  all  its  vagaries,  and  of  his 
many  qualities  of  mind  and  heart  which 
have  endeared  him  to  us  as  a  man,  a 
comrade  and  a  good  sport." 

Were  he  not  too  modest  to  advance 
them,  Mr.  Trask  might  make  three  dis- 
tinct claims  to  fame  as  an  art  director. 
He  is  a  native  of  Brooklyn,  New  York, 
born  February  18,  1871,  and  following 
his  graduation  from  college  in  1888  en- 
gaged in  newspaper  and  magazine  work 
until  1896.  In  the  latter  year  he  be- 
came affiliated,  in  the  capacity  of  as- 
sistant manager,  with  the  Pennsylvania 
Academy  of  the  Fine  Arts,  founded  in 
1805,  the  oldest  art  institution  in  the 
country.  In  1905,  when  the  Academy 
celebrated  its  centennial,  it  chose  Mr. 
Trask  as  its  secretary  and  manager, 
and  such  he  continued  to  be  until  Feb- 
ruary, 1913.  He  had  resigned  to  become 
the  Exposition's  fine  arts  director  in 
November,    1912,   but   the   Pennsylvania 


Academy  would  not  let  him  go  until 
after  he  had  arranged  its  annual  exhi- 
bition. 

As  executive  head  of  the  Academy 
Mr.  Trask  found  his  forte.  Under  his 
direction  the  annual  exhibitions  of  the 
institution  came  to  be  recognized  as 
the  best  in  the  country. 
He  was  especially  In- 
terested in  the  Acade- 
my's schools,  and  in 
the  development  of 
talent  of  the  youthful 
and  aspiring  artists, 
those  who  needed  an 
encouraging  word. 
Philip  L.  Hale  of 
Boston,  son  of  Edward 
Everett  Hale,  once 
characterized  the 
Pennsylvania  Academy 
under  Mr.  Trask'a 
management  as  "the 
only  institution  of  its 
kind  in  the  country 
that  was  almost 
human." 

Mr.  Trask  gained 
widespread  recognition 
in  1910  as  United 
States  Commissioner 
General  to  the  Expo- 
sicion  Internacional  de 
Arte  del  Centenario  at 
Buenos  Aires,  Argen- 
tina, and  to  the  Expo- 
sicion  Internacional  de  Bellas  Artes  at 
Santiago,  Chile,  as  well  as  to  a  special 
art  exhibition  at  Montevideo,  Uruguay. 
These  events  did  probably  more  than 
anything  else  to  familiarize  the  South 
American  peoples  with  American  art 
and  artists.  The  United  States  sec- 
tions, though  not  the  largest,  received 
the  greatest  number  of  awards,  and 
more  than  twenty-five  per  cent  of  the 
works  that  were  for  sale  were  sold 
and  remained  on  view.  Also,  a  con- 
siderable part  of  the  appropriation 
made  for  this  work  by  Congress  was 
returned,    unexpended. 

The  whole  world,  by  this  time,  knows 
of  the  excellence  of  the  display  of  fine 
arts  at  the  Panama-Pacific  Inter- 
national Exposition — so  it  is  needless  to 
dilate  upon  it.  Mr.  Trask,  who  con- 
ceived it,  then  carried  out  his  concep- 
tion, says  of  it  just  this:  "The  Fine 
Arts  exhibition  has  received  many  com- 
pliments it  hasn't  deserved — and  some 
knocks  that  it  also  has  not  deserved. 
But  it  is  the  most  intelligent  repre- 
sentation of  modern  art  ever  shown  in 
America,  and  it  was  made  possible  be- 
cause American  artists  are  today  doing 
better   work    than    ever   before." 

Mr.  Trask  now  has  seen  art  exposi- 
tions from  the  outside  in  and  from  the 
inside  out.  And  this  well  rounded  ex- 
perience, with  that  as  manager  of  the 
Pennsylvania  Academy,  should  make 
him  one  of  the  foremost  art  directors 
in  America. 


328 


I 


A.  E.  VANDERCOOK 


I 


N   MY   opinion,    A.    E.    Vandercook 

is  the  Edison  of  mining.     He  has 

invented  what  will   prove   one  of 

the  greatest  boons  California  has 

known.     And,   withal,   he   is   one   of  the 

most   'human'   men  I    have  ever  met." 

That  is  what  L.  B.  McMurtry,  presi- 
dent of  the  California 
Extraction  Company, 
thinks  of  the  inventor 
of  the  Vandercook  Sys- 
tem of  Ore  Treatment, 
a  system  he  is  develop- 
ing in  a  commercial 
way.  And  when  one 
considers  the  results 
that  already  have  been 
attained  with  the  Van- 
dercook Treatment,  the 
reason  for  the  enco- 
mium is  plain. 

From  the  very  first, 
almost,  Mr.  Vandercook 
had  mining  mapped  out 
for  him  as  a  career. 
That  he  has  followed  it 
steadily  and  consist- 
ently is  perhaps  one 
reason  '  why  he  has 
been  able  to  invent  and 
perfect  a  treatment  of 
ore  extraction  which 
not  only  upsets  old 
chemical  theories  but 
has  proved  itself  more 
than  98per  cent  perfect 
in    practical    operation. 

Mr.  Vandercook  is  a 
native  of  Jackson,  Michigan,  born  June 
12,  1874,  the  son  of  Oscar  Vandercook, 
mining  investor  and  at  one  time  Chief 
United  States  Marshal  for  Utah.  Fol- 
lowing his  graduation  from  the  common 
schools  of  Salt  Lake  City,  Mr.  Vander- 
cook spent  three  years  studying  under 
Charles  Wyman,  a  well-known  mining 
engineer.  Subsequently  he  spent  two 
years  in  special  courses  in  mining  at 
the  University  of  Utah,  and  specialized 
in  chemistry  for  another  year  at  the 
Ogden  Military  Academy  at  Ogden, 
Utah. 

In  1894,  when  twenty  years  old,  Mr. 
Vandercook  became  chief  assayer  in 
John  McVicker's  assay  office  at  Salt 
Lake  City.  After  a  little  more  than  a 
year  he  became  an  assayer  on  the  prop- 
erties of  the  Cedar  Valley  Gold  &  Silver 
Mining  Company  in  Arizona,  near  King- 
man. "While  there  he  evolved  a  plan 
for  the  cyanidation  of  mine  tailings  and 
tried  it  out,  with  success,  at  the  South- 
western Mining  Company's  workings  at 
El  Dorado  Canyon,  Nevada,  owned  by 
Joseph  Wharton  of  Philadelphia,  the 
"Nickel  King".  Mr.  Vandercook,  after 
erecting  this  plant,  the  first  ever  built 
in  that  section,  became  its  superintend- 
ent.    He  then  was  22  years  old. 

The  installation  and  operation  of  the 
Nevada  cyanide  plant  was  really  the 
basis  for  the  present  perfected  system, 
which  is  the  result  of  a  series  of  de- 
velopments. 

From  El  Dorado  Canyon  Mr.  Vander- 


cook went  to  Bohemia,  Oregon,  and  for 
one  winter  operated  the  Champion 
mines.  Coming  back  to  San  Francisco, 
he  was  attracted  by  a  property  orig- 
inally operated,  but  then  abandoned,  by 
Alvinza  Hayward.  Mr.  Vandercook, 
finding  the  mine  had  not  been  opened  up 
properly,  acquired  it, 
spent  some  months  de- 
veloping it  along  the 
right  lines  and  incor- 
porated the  Dairy 
Farm  Mining  Company, 
in  which  L.  C.  Trent 
became  interested. 
Three  years  later  the 
property,  now  known 
as  Vanti-ent,  was  sold 
to  the  Guggenheims. 
His  present  association 
with  L.  B.  McMurtry 
and  E.  W.  Kay  in  the 
California  Extraction 
Company  began  in 
1911;  a  laboratory  and 
a  complete  working 
model  plant  has  been 
operated  by  them  since 
July.  1913,  in  East 
Oakland. 

In  the  Vandercook 
cyanide  treatment  the 
ore  is  slimed  and 
classified  to  the  re- 
quired fineness  direct- 
ly in  the  cyanide  solu- 
tion, while  at  the 
same  time  amalgama- 
tion is  effected.  This  does  away  with 
long  hours  of  agitating  the  pulp  and 
completes  the  extraction  while  the 
crushing  is  going  on.  The  metallic 
m.ercury,  as  thus  employed,  prevents 
any  fouling  of  the  solution,  which  may 
be  re-standardized  and  used  over  again, 
at  a  great  saving.  After  the  amal- 
gamation process  a  large  part  of  the 
solution  is  removed  through  the  Van- 
dercook thickener;  then  the  thickened 
pulp  is  passed  on  to  the  Vandercook 
filter  for  the  washing  out  and  retain- 
ing of  its  pregnant  solution.  This  solu- 
tion then  is  in  an  absolutely  clear  state 
— a  condition  not  the  case  in  other 
processes — and  i.s  precipitated  on  zinc 
shavings. 

So  epochal  is  the  Vandercook  process 
that  miners  must  be  shown  before  they 
will  believe  it  possible  to  secure  a  98 
or  99  per  cent  extraction.  The  secret 
lies  largely  in  the  combination  of  the 
cyanide  and  amalgam  systems,  which 
ordinarily  are  used  separately.  Even 
the  most  conservative  have  character- 
ized the  system  as  revolutionary.  Inas- 
much as  with  it  tailings  of  aban- 
doned mines  and  ores  considered  of 
prohibitive  low  grade  may  be  worked 
with   profit. 

And  the  invention  is  no  longer  in  the 
experimental  stage.  It  has  been  fully 
proven.  Patents  have  been  secured, 
plants  are  now  being,  or  about  to  be, 
erected  for  a  number  of  mining  com- 
panies, and  the  way  is  opened  for  uni- 
versal exploitation. 


329 


JOHN  CHARLES  KEMP  VAN  EE 


FEW  sections  of  the  globe  have  been 
overlooked  by  John  Charles  Kemp 
Van  Ee  in  his  promotion  of  min- 
ing, oil  and  varied  industries.  His 
operations  have  not  only  emliraced  the 
Western  United  States  and  Mexico  but 
they  have  carried  him  to  England,  South 
Africa,  West  Africa, 
Australia  and  the  Cen- 
tral and  South  Ameri- 
cas. For  nearly  lialf  a 
century  he  has  been 
known  as  an  industrial 
pioneer. 

On  November  22, 
1S56,  Mr.  Kemp  Van  Ee 
was  born  at  Ruther- 
ford Park,  New  Jersey. 
He  is  of  the  purest 
Dutch  strain  and  de- 
scendant of  a  family 
unusually  well-known. 
His  father  was  John 
Charles  Kemp  Van  Ee 
and  his  mother  Hen- 
rietta A.  M.  C.  Sm  i  t 
(Roeters)  Van  Ee. 

Following  his  grad- 
uation, in  1867,  from 
grammar  school,  Mr. 
Kemp  Van  Ee  imme- 
diately came  west  to 
San  Francisco,  where 
he  settled.  A  few  years 
later,  while  still  but  a 
youth,  he  began  his 
study  of  mining  by  en- 
tering tlie  hold  in  Tu- 
olumne County,  California.  He  also 
mined  considerably  at  White  Pine,  Ne- 
vada; Pioche,  Utah,  and  in  other  sec- 
tions, and  in  1876  became  interested  in 
the  Sierra  mine  at  Bodie.  In  those  days 
Bodie  was  one  of  the  most  famovis  min- 
ing camps  in  the  West,  and  Mr.  Kemp 
Van  Ee  operated  there  for  nearly  three 
years. 

The  first  railroad  line  across  the 
Sierra  range  from  Bloody  Canyon  to 
Sonora  was  surveyed  by  Mr.  Kemp  Van 
Ee  in  1878.  This  made  accessible  a 
vast  new  territory  and  proved  of  untold 
value  from  the  beginning.  He  con- 
tinued his  pioneering  operations  by  the 
construction,  two  years  later,  of  the 
first  telephone  line  from  May  Lundie  to 
the  Yosemite  Valley,  and  this  was  fol- 
lowed the  next  year  by  his  building  of 
the  railroad  from  Crockers  to  Lake  Ten- 
nia,  thence  to  the  Sierra  mine  and  the 
base  of  Mount  Dana.  During  this  con- 
structive period  he  also  did  much  to 
preserve  California's  famous  big  trees 
by  the  issuance  of  what  is  known  as 
Valentine  scrip,  which  cannot  be  given 
out  on  other  than  gold-bearing  prop- 
erties. 

Mr.  Kemp  Van  Ee  sold  most  of  his 
California  mining  interests  in  18S2  and 
began  operating  elsewhere.  In  1886  he 
became  owner  of  mines  in  Mexico  and, 
as  in  previous  instances,  connected  it 
liy  rail  witli  the  world's  markets.  He 
built  sixty  miles  of  road  from  Ortize  to 
Las    Bronzas,    and     eighty-eight    miles 


more  between  Las  Bronzas  and  Trini- 
dad. Returning  to  Idaho  in  1888  he 
again  became  interested  in  mining 
there,  and  did  much  to  establisli  and 
build  up  the  towns  of  Mountain  Home, 
Rotky  Bar  and  Silver  City.  Thereafter 
he  went  abroad  and  was  gone  until  1897. 
It  was  during  this 
long  sojourn,  in  which 
he  traveled  extensively 
all  over  the  world,  that 
Mr.  Kemp  Van  Ee  did 
important  mining  and 
other  promotion  work 
in  Central  America, 
South  America,  Aus- 
tralia and  Africa.  He 
was  interested  1  n  a 
great  variety  of  in- 
d  u  s  t  r  i  e  s,  especially 
during  his  residence  in 
London,  where  his  en- 
terprises involved  i  n 
actual  investments  an 
aggregate  of  more 
than  $100,000,000.  In- 
cluded in  these  proj- 
ects were  the  steam 
steel  axle-box  and  the 
development  of  the 
Barton  vineyards  and 
of  the  Garfield  mine. 
The  mine  was  later 
disposed  of  for  a  con- 
sideration of  $1,250,- 
000. 

Returning,  in  1897, 
from  abroad,  Mr.  Kemp 
Van  Ee  purchased  the  Royal  mine  in 
Calaveras  County,  California,  near  Cop- 
peropolis.  In  the  subsequent  strike 
that  occurred  at  the  properties,  he 
set  a  precedent  by  securing  from  the 
Federal  courts  a  permanent  injunction 
against  the  Miners'  Union.  The  Royal 
is  still  in  operation  and  today  has 
one  of  the  largest  stamp  mills  in  the 
State.  Mr.  Kemp  Van  Ee  remains  in 
control. 

Not  long  after  the  fire  Mr.  Kemp  Van 
Ee  turned  his  attention  to  the  develop- 
ment of  his  oil  holdings,  at  the  same 
time  forming  the  San  Juan  Portland 
Cement  Company.  In  line  with  his  oil 
operations  he,  with  a  New  York  capi- 
talist, purchased  the  Chittenden  ranch 
in  Santa  Cruz  County  and  also  mineral 
rights  on  8,750  acres  of  land  in  San 
Benito  County.  He  was  one  of  the  chief 
purchasers,  late  in  1906,  of  the  Palmer 
and  Palmer  Jr.  oil  properties  in  Santa 
Barbara  County.  It  is  to  these  interests 
that  most  of  his  attention  is  today  di- 
rected, although  in  addition  to  these  he 
is  president  of  the  California  Central 
Railroad  Co.  and  the  Did  Mission  Port- 
land Cement  Co.,  vice-president  of  the 
San  Juan  Pacific  Railroad  Co.  and  gen- 
eral manager  of  the  North  Star  mine  at 
Mokelumne   Hill. 

Mr.  Kemp  Van  Ee  was  married  in 
1873  in  San  Francisco  to  Miss  Hattie 
Holt  King.  He  has  one  son,  John  Charles 
Kemp  Van  Ee,  Jr.,  now  attending  Col- 
umbia University. 


330 


A.  WENZELBURGER 


THERE  are  two  ways,  from  the 
psychological  viewpoint,  of  living 
with  satisfaction  to  ourselves. 
One  way  is  to  set  ourselves  no 
goal  whatsoever,  to  let  intellectuality 
and  personal  attainments  go  for  naught, 
and  we  are  happy  and  satisfied  through 
ignorance.  The  other, 
and  the  better,  way  is 
to  choose  our  goal, 
then  as  we  struggle 
constantly  compare  our 
"success"'  with  our 
"pretensions"  until  the 
two  balance;  and  when 
they  do,  then  have  we 
lived,  then  have  we 
attained  inner  satis- 
faction,  indeed! 

Measured  by  such  a 
standard  as  this,  A. 
Wenzelburger,  expert 
public  accountant  and 
head  of  a  large  corps 
of  workers,  has  gained 
satisfaction  in  his  suc- 
cess. He  has  become 
what  he  set  out  to  be- 
come; and  though  that 
does  not  mean  that  he 
has  ceased  to  advance, 
still  he  has  reached 
his  original  goal  and 
more. 

There  are  many 
reasons  why  Mr.  Wen- 
zelburger should  se- 
cure recognition  in  the 
story  of  San  Francisco  and  California. 
It  is  on  the  shoulders  of  such  men  as  he, 
stanch  and  dependable,  that  has  fallen 
the  burden  of  this  State's  develop- 
ment. 

Of  particular  interest  at  this  time, 
when  the  Spring  Valley  Water  Company 
has  been  brought  into  the  limelight  by 
the  proposed  purchase  of  its  properties 
by  the  City  of  San  Francisco,  is  the 
fact  that  it  was  Mr.  Wenzelburger  who 
made  the  examination  of  the  water 
company's  affairs  for  the  city  in  1904. 
This  was  in  connection  with  the  munic- 
ipality's suit  against  the  corporation 
and  involved  an  investigation  of  the 
cost  of  operation  of  Spring  Valley  from 
the  date  of  its  organization  in  1854. 
The  work,  done  under  the  direction  of 
City  Engineers  Dockweiler  and 
Grunsky,  took  nine  months  of  close 
application  and  tedious  labor;  it  was 
the  most  extensive  examination  ever 
made  by  the  city  of  the  affairs  of  a 
public  utility.  Mr.  Wenzelburger's  ap- 
pointment carried  with  it  a  salary  of 
$1,000  a  month. 

A.  Wenzelburger  was  born  in  1847 
in  Southern  Germany,  the  son  of  the 
Rev.  John  George  Wenzelburger,  a 
Lutheran  minister  who  acted  as  director 
of  the  diocese  of  Braunsbach  in  the 
kingdom  of  Wurtemberg.  Mr.  Wen- 
zelburger -was  graduated,-  in  1865,  from 
the  Latin  school  of  his  native  city,  a 
school  graded  somewhat  higher  than 
the  high  schools  of  the  United  States. 
For  the  succeeding  three  years  he  en- 
gaged   in    mercantile    pursuits,    but    in 


1S6S  came  to  the  United  States.  This  he 
was  prompted  to  do  partly  because  he 
felt  that  military  service,  whicli  would 
have  been  compulsory  had  he  remained 
in  Germany,  would  retard  his  progress 
in  a  career  which  had  far  more  attrac- 
tions to  him  than  that  of  bearing  arms. 
The  spring  of  1868 
witnessed  Mr.  Wenzel- 
burger's  arrival  at 
Philadelphia.  He 
visited  relatives  there 
a  few  months,  then 
came  across  country 
to  San  Francisco.  A 
week  spent  here  and 
he  went  to  Eastern 
Nevada,  where  he  be- 
came accountant  for  a 
large  mining  concern. 
In  those  days  mining 
operations  in  Nevada 
were  sometimes  of 
rather  short  duration, 
so  that  Mr.  Wenzel- 
burger was  obliged  to 
change  his  position 
frequently  and  at  times 
seek  employment  with 
cominercial  firms.  At 
length  he  started  out 
independently  i  n  t  h  e 
hardware  business  at 
Hamilton,  Nevada,  re- 
maining in  this  pursuit 
until  1876,  when  he  re- 
turned to  San  Francis- 
co, this  time  to  remain. 
An  active  business  association  with 
the  late  Julius  Jacobs  began  when  Mr. 
Wenzelburger  became  cashier  and  ac- 
countant of  the  Germania  Life  Insur- 
ance Company.  Mr.  Jacobs  was  then 
general  agent  for  the  Germania  com- 
pany. Afterward  he  was  made  Assist- 
ant United  States  Treasurer  under 
President  McKinley,  but  passed  away 
before  his  term  of  office  expired.  Mr. 
Jacobs  was  a  member  of  the  firm  of 
Jacobs,  Easton  &  Company,  to  which 
Mr.  Wenzelburger  was  admitted  to 
partnership  in  the  late  eighties,  when 
it  was  the  largest  insurance  concern 
in  San  Francisco. 

Following  the  passing  of  the  Public 
Accountancy  Act  by  the  State  Legis- 
lature, Mr.  Wenzelburger  was  appointed 
by  Governor  Pardee  a  member  of  the 
State  Board  of  Commissioners  of  Public 
Accountants  and  during  the  second  year 
of  the  board's  existence  served  as  its 
president.  Since  that  time,  however,  he 
has  devoted  his  entire  attention  to 
private  practice  and  has  built  up  a 
strong  clientele.  He  is  auditor  for  a 
number  of  large   local  concerns. 

Mr.  Wenzelburger  was  married  in 
1878  in  San  Francisco  to  Miss  Ella 
Carter.  The  couple  have  two  daughters: 
Elise,  wife  of  Judge  A.  E.  Graupner, 
and  Lalla,  wife  of  First  Lieutenant 
"William  H.  Shea,  U.  S.  A.  Mr.  Wenzel- 
burger is  a  member  of  several  fraternal 
orders,  among  them  holding  the  thirty- 
second  degree  of  the  Scottish  Rite,  and 
in  matters  pertaining  to  civic  better- 
ment is  especially  active. 


331 


J.  E.  WHITE 


EVERY  man  has  his  personal  con- 
victions. He  knows  certain  things 
are  right  and  that  their  growtli 
should  be  fostered,  and  that  cer- 
tain other  things  are  wrong  and  should 
be  rooted  out.  But  so  prone  is  mankind 
to  evade  its  responsibility  that  the  one 
who  shows  the  cour- 
age of  his  convictions 
is  the  exception,  per- 
haps, rather  than  tlie 
rule. 

J.  E  White,  attorney 
at  law  and  one  of  the 
greatest  champions  of 
good  in  the  State  of 
California,  has  shown 
this  sort  of  courage  to 
an  unusual  degree.  He 
believes  that  anything 
that  lowers  the  stand- 
ard of  morality,  any- 
thing that  tends  to  be- 
set the  youth  of  the 
land  with  temptations 
and  dangers,  is  a  men- 
ace to  society  and  that 
it  is  the  duty  of  honest 
individuals  to  pool 
their  efforts  toward  ef- 
fecting a  change  for 
the  better.  Believing 
thus,  he  has  for  the 
past  dozen  years  or 
more  been  in  the  thick 
of  the  fight  for  the 
better  life  and  has  not 
spared  his  efforts  in  anything  worthy, 
despite  the  fact  that  his  activities  have 
worked  a  great  personal  loss  by  taking 
him  away  from  monetary  pursuits. 

Away  back  in  1902,  with  others,  Mr. 
White  organized  the  Higher  License 
League  and  launched  a  campaign  to 
raise  the  saloon  license  in  San  Fran- 
cisco from  $84  a  year  to  $500  a  year. 
The  project  was  defeated  at  an  election 
in  the  fall  of  1905  by  about  3,000  votes, 
but  following  the  fire  the  organization 
went  before  the  Board  of  Supervisors 
and  secured  the  ordinance  they  desired. 
This  included  provisions  making  it  un- 
lawful to  conduct  a  saloon  within  150 
feet  of  a  school  or  church  and  also 
divorcing  the  saloon  from  the  grocery 
store.  Up  to  that  time  nearly  all  the 
groceries  had  bars,  but  by  means  of 
the  ordinance  the  number  of  bars  in 
the  city  was  reduced  by  about  1,200. 
Since  then  Mr.  White  has  represented 
about  90  per  cent  of  the  protestants 
against  the  location  of  saloons  in  dis- 
tricts where  they  were  not  desired.  He 
also  has  been  called  upon  to  assist 
other  cities  in  a  similar  work.  Among 
others  he  led  a  campaign  in  1906  in 
Vallejo  which  reduced  the  number  of 
saloons  by  one-half.  He  has  been  at- 
torney for  the  Anti-Saloon  League  in 
Northern  California  for  ten  years. 

In  1909  Mr.  White  led  the  campaign 
that  did  away  with  slot  machines  in 
San  Francisco,  a  campaign   backed  by 


the  San  Francisco  Church  Federation, 
which  he  has  represented  in  its  civic  ac- 
tivities for  the  past  eight  years.  In  1911 
Mr.  White  led  the  fight  before  the 
State  Legislature  which  spelled  the 
doom  of  slot  machines  throughout  Cali- 
fornia. About  the  same  time  he  did  con- 
siderable campaigning 
on  behalf  of  woman 
suffrage,  which  finally 
won. 

About  eight  years 
ago  Mr.  White  started, 
with  others,  a  move- 
ment to  abolish  prize 
fights  in  San  Francis- 
co. He  succeeded,  in 
1910,  in  blocking  the 
Johnson-Jeffries  fight 
that  was  to  have  been 
held  here.  After  failing 
to  get  an  anti-prize 
fight  bill  through  the 
1911  Legislature  he 
helped  pass  one  under 
the  initiative  in  1914 
and  it  went  into  effect 
last  December.  He  was 
secretary  of  the  State 
campaign  committee 
in  1914  that  worked 
for  the  Redlight  Abate- 
ment Bill,  which  be- 
came a  law,  and  in  the 
subsequent  test  case 
Mr.  White  represented 
the  people  of  Califor- 
nia. He  also  campaigned  all  over  the 
State  in  1914  on  behalf  of  the  prohibi- 
tion amendment,  as  chairman  of  the 
citizenship  and  temperance  department 
of  the  State  Christian  Endeavor  Union. 
He  is  aiding  the  "dry"  campaign  now 
under  way  for  the  1916  election. 

Mr.  White  was  born  November  8,  1870, 
on  a  farm  in  Grundy  County,  Iowa,  the 
son  of  Robert  White  and  Rosa  (Zeran) 
White.  He  attended  the  public  schools  of 
Rockford,  Iowa,  was  graduated  from  the 
High  School  in  1889  and  received  his 
A.  B.  from  Cornell  College  in  1895.  He 
worked  his  way  through  school  almost 
from  the  beginning.  For  some  time  he 
was  employed  at  nights  as  call-boy  for 
a  railroad,  pursuing  his  studies  in  the 
day  time.  Later,  during  his  vacations, 
he  worked  as  chore  boy  in  a  law  office. 
In  1896  Mr.  White  went  to  Riverside, 
California,  and  taught  in  a  business 
college  besides  conducting  a  private 
preparatory  school  for  teachers.  He 
came  to  San  Francisco  in  1899,  entered 
the  Hastings  College  of  the  Law. 
through  which  he  worked  his  way,  and 
received  his  LL.  B.  in  1902.  He  at  once 
began  practicing  his  profession  inde- 
pendently, specializing  in  probate  and 
corporation  matters.  Politically  he  is 
an  ardent  and  active  Progressive. 

Mr.  White  belongs  to  the  Common- 
wealth Club  and  is  a  stanch  member  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  of 
which  he  is  general  State  counsel. 


332 


RANDOLPH  V.  WHITING 


A  NATIVE  SON  of  the  Golden  West, 
mingling  with  the  broad  optimis- 
tic outlook  of  the  Westerner  the 
traditions  of  his  distinguished 
Southern  ancestry,  no  history  of  San 
Francisco  or  California  would  be  com- 
plete without  the  name  of  Randolph  V. 
Whiting,  lawyer,  edi- 
tor, .  politician — in  the 
highest  sense  of  the 
term — and  gentleman. 
A  descendant  of  the 
famous  Carter  and 
Braxton  families  of 
Virginia,  who  in  the 
days  before  the  Civil 
War  occupied  princi- 
palities in  that  State, 
Mr.  Whiting  was  born 
in  Q  u  i  n  c  y  ,  Plumas 
County,  California,  and 
received  his  early 
training  in  the  schools 
of  that  community.  His 
later  education  was 
obtained  i  n  Bowens' 
A  c  a  d  e  m  y,  Berkeley, 
whence  he  entered  the 
University  of  Califor- 
nia and  afterward 
Hastings  College  of  the  Law,  receiving 
his  degree  from  the  latter  institution 
in  1895. 

While  in  college,  Mr.  Whiting  dis- 
tinguished himself  in  athletics  and 
held  several  coast  records  for  a  number 
of  years.  Upon  leaving  college  and 
being  graduated  from  Hastings  in  1S95, 
he  took  up  the  practice  of  his  profes- 
sion in  this  city. 

In  1900  he'  was  appointed  Assistant 
District  Attorney  of  San  Francisco  un- 
der Lewis  F.  Byington  and  served  in 
that  capacity  until  1906,  when  he  en- 
tered private  practice  again.  It  was 
during  his  term  in  the  District  Attor- 
ney's office  that  Mr.  Whiting  won  a 
remarkable  victory,  when  he  served  as 
an  expert  on  California  law  in  the  ex- 
tradition of  George  D.  Collins,  accused 
of  bigamy  and  perjury,  who  had  made 
his  escape  to  Canada. 

Mr.  Whiting  is  today  one  of  the  fore- 
most lawyers  in  San  Francisco.  For 
ten  years  he  has  been  very  prominent  in 
State  and  County  politics  and  has  been 
mentioned  for  high  offices,  although  he 
has  refused  steadfastly  to  accept  the 
urgings  of  his  friends  in  this  di- 
rection.      Among     the     offerings     were 


those  for  the  offices  of  Superior  Judge, 
United  States  Attorney  and  District  At- 
torney. 

He  was  a  member  of  the  Democratic 
State    Central     Committee    and    of    the 
County  Central  Committee  and  was  one 
of  the  four  men  appointed  to  represent 
San    Francisco    at    the 
inauguration  of  Presi- 
dent Wilson,  the  other 
three    being    M.    H.    de 
Young,    Theodore    Bell 
and    Congressman    Ju- 
lius  Kahn. 

A  well  known  and 
able  law  writer,  Mr. 
Whiting  is  noted  for 
his  grasp  of  legal  de- 
cisions and  the  points 
involved.  For  many 
years  he  has  been  edi- 
tor of  two  legal  publi- 
cations, "California  De- 
cisions" and  "California 
Appellate  Decisions," 
which  are  the  advance 
publications  of  the  Su- 
preme and  Appellate 
Court  decisions. 

On  February  1,  1915, 
Mr.  Whiting  had  conferred  upon  him 
the  honor  of  being  appointed  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  California  to  the 
position  of  assistant  reporter  of  State 
Supreme  Court  decisions  as  well  as 
of  decisions  of  the  District  Court  of 
Appeals.  This  position  involves  the 
digesting  and  preparation  of  syl- 
labi of  the  decisions  of  these  two 
courts. 

Mr.  Whiting  is  prominent  in  the  Ma- 
sonic order  and  has  been  closely  identi- 
fied with  the  extensive  charitable  work 
of  that  organization.  He  is  past  master 
of  King  Solomon's  lodge,  having  filled 
all  the  chairs  of  the  lodge  one  after  the 
other.  He  is  also  a  member  of  Califor- 
nia Commandery  of  Knights  Templar 
and  of  the  Scottish  Rite  bodies,  as  well 
as  of  Islam  Temple,  Ancient  Arabic 
Order  Nobles  of  the  Mystic  Shrine  of 
San  Francisco. 

In  1900  Mr.  Whiting  married  Miss 
Mary  Rosselet  Bowens,  daughter  of  the 
late  T.  Stewart  Bowens  and  Mrs.  Bow- 
ens of  Oakland  and  Berkeley,  a  belle 
of  the  east  bay  community  and  at  the 
present  time  prominent  in  the  club  and 
social  life  of  Oakland  and  San  Fran- 
cisco. 


333 


VINCENT   WHITNEY 


IT  is  quite  as  important  to  retain 
something  that  has  come  Into  one's 
possession  as  to  possess  it  in  the 
first  place.  And  this  is  particulaiiy 
true  when  it  applies  to  an  estate,  on 
which  work  must  be  constant  if  it 
is  to  be  kept  up  to  its  original  status 
or  value. 

Vincent  Whitney  has  |,_ — 
found  his  life's  work  in  '  • 
the  management  of  the 
properties  acquired 
and  partially  built  up 
by  his  noted  father,  the 
late  J.  Parker  Whit- 
ney. Even  before  his 
father's  death,  which 
occurred  i  n  January, 
1913,  Vincent  Whitney 
had  been  placed  in 
charge  of  the  Whitney 
interests,  and  these  lie 
has  strengthened  and 
increased  in  a  most  ca- 
pable manner. 

Born  May  13,  18S0,  in 
New  York   City,   the 
younger    Mr.    Whitney 
secured   his   early   edu- 
cation    at    St.    Paul's 
School  of  Concord,  New 
Hampshire.      He  after- 
ward attended  Harvard 
University      and      spe- 
cialized   in    engineering.       The    knowl- 
edge thus  gained   has   proven  decidedly 
useful    to    him,    as    he    has    applied    it 
since  to  the  practical  side  of  ranching. 

In  1903  Vincent  Whitney  came  to'Cal- 
ifornia  and  lived  for  three  years  in  Los 
Angeles  and  at  other  points  in  Southern 
California.  He  removed  to  San  Fran- 
cisco in  December,  1905,  and  has  re- 
mained here  ever  since  in  charge  of 
the  Whitney  Estate  Company.  He  has 
taken  a  keen  interest  in  matters  having 
to  do  with  tile  advancement  of  the  city 
of  his  choice  and  has  been  active  in  a 
number  of  public  movements.  One  of 
these  was  tlie  1909  Portola  Festival, 
which  came  near  being  an  international 
celebration,  and  in  whicli  Mr.  Wliitney 
■was  one  of  the  leading  spirits.  He  has 
long  been  prominent  also  in  sports, 
particularly  in  golf. 

The  Whitney  Estate  Company's  hold- 
ings are  by  no  means  confined  to  Cal- 
ifornia, although  the  bulk  of  the  prop- 
erties is  in  this  State.  There  is  in- 
cluded the  ]S,000-acre  Whitney  ranch 
in  Placer  County  at  Rocklin,  otlier 
real  estate,  town  lots  in  San  Francisco 
and  elsewhere,  the  Congress  Hotel 
property  at  Pueblo,  Colorado,  and  vari- 
ous other  interests  of  one  kind  and 
another. 

The  late  J.  Parker  Whitney,  whose 
work  his  son  is  carrying  on,  was  a 
sturdy  California  pioneer.  In  all  forms 
of  Western  enterprise — in  mining,  fruit 
raising,  land  reclamation,  live  stock 
breeding    and    ranching — the    name    of 


Whitney  has  been  widelv  known,  and 
in  eacli  of  these  subjects  he  was  an 
authority. 

Tlie  son  of  a  prominent  New  England 
family,   Mr.   Whitney  the  elder  was   but 
seventeen   years   old   when   he   made   his 
first  trip  to  California  by  water  around 
the    Horn.      Later    he 
crossed    the    plains 
no  less  tlian  five  times. 
j         In  1S65  he  went  to  Col- 
orado   and    was    for    a 
\  longtime   active    in 

\-  mining.       During     this 

period,  in  1867,  he  was 
appointed  United 
States  Commissioner  to 
the  Paris  Interna- 
tional Exposition. 
».  Some     time    after    this 

he  ^vent  to  New  Mex- 
ico, where  he  built  tlie 
Silver  City  Railroad, 
connecting  Silver  City 
with  tlie  Santa  Fe 
Railway    at    Deming. 

For  half  a  century 
the  late  Mr.  Whitney 
■was  active  in  agricul- 
tural, horticultural  and 
stock  raising  pursuits, 
and  in  each  of  these 
three  lie  "was  a  pioneer. 
He  was  the  first  to  im- 
port thoroughbred  Merino  sheep  to  Cal- 
ifornia from  Spain;  it  was  he  who  first 
demonstrated  that  not  only  could 
oranges  be  grown  in  Northern  Califor- 
nia but  that  they  ripen  here  from  six 
weeks  to  two  months  earlier  than  those 
grown  in  the  Southern  section  of  the 
State;  and  he  it  was  who  shipped  tlie 
first  carload  of  raisins  out  of  California. 
He  did  notable  land  reclamation  work 
nt  Roberts  Island  in  the  San  Joaquin 
river. 

'Like  father,  like  son,  the  Whitneys 
have  ever  been  stanch  believers  in  San 
Francisco  and  California  and  have  lent 
a  hand  at  every  opportunity  toward  the 
upbuilding  of  both.  Following  the  San 
Franci.sco  fire  of  1906  the  Whitneys 
were  among  the  first  to  start  rebuild- 
ing, with  the  erection  of  the  Whitney 
building  at   133   Geary  street. 

Tlie  elder  Whitney,  besides  his  busi- 
ness accomplishments,  ■was  a  sportsman 
and  a  writer  of  far  more  than  ordinary 
note.  His  exploits  with  the  rod  and 
gun  extended  over  two  continents. 
Among  the  works  of  whicli  he  was  the 
author  are:  'The  Reminiscences  of  a 
Sportsman,"  "Fresh-Water  Tide  Lands," 
"Colonization  of  Lands,"  "Citrus  Culti- 
vation" and  "The  Greater  Future  and 
Welfare    of    California." 

Vincent  Whitney  is  active  in  a  num- 
ber of  social  organizations.  He  was 
married  in  San  Francisco  to  Miss  Pearl 
Landers,  daughter  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  John 
Landers  of  this  city,  at  a  brilliant  so- 
cial wedding. 


334 


EDWARD   D.  WILBUR 


THE  difference  between  a  man  who 
accomplishes  something'  in  this 
life  and  the  one  who  drifts 
through  it  with  as  little  expen- 
diture of  effort  as  possible,  is  simply 
that  the  successful  man  fixes  a  certain 
goal  and  sets  out  to  win  it,  letting 
nothing  divert  h  i  m 
from  his  course. 

Edward  D.  Wilbur 
became  an  attorney- 
at-law  after  constant 
studying,  at  times 
when  he  fain  would 
have  rested  from  his 
bread-winning  labors, 
those  of  a  carpenter- 
ing contractor.  That 
a  man's  wife  can 
either  make  him  or 
drag  him  down,  ac- 
cording to  her  attri- 
butes, is  exemplified  in 
the  case  of  Mr.  Wilbur. 
His  wife  ever  urged 
him  on  and  encouraged 
him;  by  his  side  she 
went,  studying  law 
with  him,  giving  him 
examinations  and  thus 
rounding  out  his 
knowledge  and  making 
it  permanent. 

The  result — Mr.  Wil- 
bur passed  his  bar  ex- 
aminations with  flying  colors  and  today 
enjoys     a     strong     and     ever-growing- 
clientele  as  a  reward  for  his  endeavors 

Edward  Douglass  Wilbur  comes  of  a 
stock  that  for  generations  has  been 
noted  for  doing  big  things.  He  was 
born  at  Frankfort,  Kentucky,  June  13, 
1857,  the  son  of  Sydney  Wilbur,  an  Epis- 
copal minister,  and  Emily  (Douglass) 
Wilbur.  His  paternal  great-grand- 
father, Edward  Wilbur,  was  a  merchant 
on  the  high  seas  at  the  time  of  the 
American  Revolution.  He  turned  his 
vessel  over  to  the  Colonies  as  a  fight- 
ing frigate  and  retained  its  command. 
The  present  Mr.  Wilbur  has  the  chapeau 
and  plaid  coat  of  his  fighting  ancestor. 
The  son  of  the  sea  captain,  also  Edwai-d 
Wilbur,  was  one  of  the  projectors  and 
builders  of  the  Erie  Canal. 

The  maternal  great-grandfather  of 
Mr.  Wilbur  was  Andrew  Ellicott,  civil 
engineer,  companion  of  George  Wash- 
ington and  one  of  those  who  laid  out 
the  City  of  Washington.  As  United 
States  Surveyor  General  he  did  much  to 
bring  West  Point  Military  Academy  up 
to  standard.  David  I^ates  Douglass, 
Mr.  Wilbur's  maternal  grandfather,  also 
was  a  civil  engineer  of  the  United 
States  Engineering  Corps.  Among  his 
projects  were  the  remodeling  of  West 
Point,  laying  out  of  Greenwood  ceme- 
tery. Long  Island,  and  building  of  Cro- 
ton  Waterworks,  New  York  City. 

After  attending  the  common  schools 
of   his   birthplace,    Mr.    Wilbur    in    1869 


came  across  the  continent  with  his 
parents  by  the  Central  Pacific  Railway. 
They  stopped  off  in  San  Francisco,  just 
at  the  time  "Steam  Paddy"  Hewes  was 
removing  the  sand  dune  from  the  pres- 
ent Palace  Hotel  site.  In  San  Diego 
Mr.  Wilbur  went  to  school  about  a  year. 
The  rest  of  his  educa- 
tion has  been  gained  in 
the  great  school  of  ex- 
perience. 

Starting  out  to  make 
his  own  way,  he  came 
to  San  Francisco  and 
worked  at  various  jobs. 
Drifting  into  carpen- 
tering, he  finally  be- 
came a  building  con- 
tractor. In  1880  he 
married  Jennie  Evans 
of  Point  Reyes,  daugh- 
ter of  the  agent  for  the 
O.L.  Shaffer  estate.  His 
wife  was  higljly  edu- 
cated and  encouraged 
him  to  enter  the  law. 
The  couple  had  three 
children,  but  death 
took  them  all,  the  wife 
herself  dying  in  1899. 
j^  j  Mr.    Wilbur    entered 

^mrlL^..  I      the   law   offices   of  Til- 

jBmfl^m  den  &  Tilden  in  1S84, 
i-'^-^^^^^KB  but  was  forced  to  go 
to  San  Diego  to  re- 
cover from  an  accident.  Returning 
here,  in  1889,  he  was  admitted  to  the 
office  of  Judge  Barney  McKenna  and 
in  February,  1892,  gained  entrance  to 
the  bar.  For  sevei-al  years  he  was 
associated  with  other  attorneys,  but 
a  little  more  than  three  years  ago  set 
up  an  independent  practice.  Today  he 
engages  in  general  civil  law  work, 
keeping  out  of  the  criminal  law  as  far 
as  possible. 

Politically  Mr.  Wilbur  is  a  Republi- 
can, but  always  has  declined  public 
office  or  political  preferment.  Ever 
since  1872,  when,  as  captain  of  the  Boys 
in  Blue  at  San  Diego,  he  worked  on 
behalf  of  Grant  for  a  second  term  as 
president,  he  has  stood  for  the  good  of 
the   party. 

"Like  the  leopard,"  says  he,  "I  cannot 
change  my  spots.  I  believe  the  Repub- 
lican party  is  the  best.  Simply  be- 
cause we  find  one  or  two  undesirables 
within  its  ranks  is  no  reason  why  the 
whole  party  should  be  cast  under  as- 
persion. Rather,  it  should  make  us  put 
our  shoulders  to  the  wheel  with  greater 
zest,  rid  ourselves  of  the  undesirables 
and  cause  the  party,  to  be  looked  up  to 
more    than    ever   before." 

Since  the  death  of  his  wife  Mr.  Wil- 
bur has  taken  no  part  in  social  or  fra- 
ternal affairs.  In  civic  matters,  how- 
ever, he  is  active.  He  was  the  founder 
of  the  Fourth  and  Fifth  Streets  Im- 
provement Clubs  and  only  recently  won 
a  notable  victory  before  the  Supervisors 
in  securing  much  needed  lights  for 
Fourth  street  from  Market  to  Townsend. 


335 


FRED   S.   WILSON 


THE  rule  that  the  man  who  knows 
the  most  about  his  own  business, 
and  has  the  best  chance  of  suc- 
cess in  plying  it,  is  he  who  lias 
learned  it  from  the  very  bottom  up — 
this  rule  holds  good  today  just  as  much 
as  it  ever  did.  And  it  must  continue  to 
apply  so  long  as  our 
present-day  economical 
system    lasts. 

Fred  S.  Wilson,  vice- 
president  of  the  Ther- 
moid  Rubber  Company, 
manufacturers  of  Nas- 
sau Tires,  turned  natu- 
rally to  the  rubber 
business  when  it  came 
time  for  him  to  begin 
casting  about  for  a 
means  of  self-support. 
He  was  born  May  5, 
1877,  in  Trenton,  New 
Jersey,  son  of  Richard 
P.  Wilson  and  Cather- 
ine (Jones)  Wilson. 
Trenton  is  a  manufac- 
turing center  for  rub- 
ber and  pottery,  and  it 
follows  that  the 
you  ng  e  r  generation 
takes  to  one  or  the 
other  of  these  two  in- 
dustries. 

Sixty  years  or  more 
ago  Joseph  O.  Stokes, 
superintendent  of  the  New  Jersey 
Steel  &  Iron  Company  at  Trenton, 
gave  a  job  to  Richard  P.  Wilson, 
then  fourteen  years  old.  Ten  years  or 
so  later,  when  Wilson  started  out  for 
himself  in  the  coal  and  lumber  busi- 
ness, he  took  in  with  him  Stokes'  eldest 
son,  W.  J.  B.  Stokes,  then  aged  17. 
Subsequently  W.  J.  B.  Stokes  became 
president  of  the  Home  Rubber  Com- 
pany, among  others,  and  when  Fred  S. 
Wilson  was  sixteen  years  old,  he  left 
the  public  schools  to  accept  a  position 
tendered  him  by  Stokes,  his  father's  old- 
time  business  partner.  This  has  kept 
the  names  of  Stokes  and  Wilson  linked 
together  for  more  than  half  a  century. 
Mr.  Wilson  went  into  the  rubber  busi- 
ness through  the  factory  door.  He  was 
put  to  work  at  the  bench,  as  an  ap- 
prentice in  the  manufacture  of  bicycle 
tires.  Here  he  labored  three  years, 
when,  having  made  good,  he  was  sent 
to  New  York  as  city  salesman  for  the 
Thermoid  Rubber  Company,  also  a 
Stokes  concern.  And  it  is  with  the 
Thermoid  company  that  he  has  re- 
mained. 

Three  more  years,  spent  as  city  sales- 
man, and  Mr.  Wilson  was  given  a  terri- 
tory in  the  Eastern  States.  He  traveled 
over  this  and  other  territories,  with 
consistent  success,  for  about  five  years. 
By  his  knowledge  of  the  business  and 
his  ability  as  a  salesman  he  made  him- 
self valuable  and  the  result  was  that 


he  was  recalled  to  the  mai.i  ofRces  at 
Trenton  and  made  sales  manager,  later 
being  given  the  added  work  of  adver- 
tising   manager. 

In  1907,  fourteen  years  after  he  took 
his  place  at  the  apprentice's  bench,  Mr. 
Wilson  became  a  director  in  the 
Thermoid  Rubber  Com- 
pany and  was  chosen 
its  vice-president,  a 
position  he  retains  to 
this  day.  The  concern 
is  a  close  corporation, 
consisting  only  of 
Joseph  Oliver  Stokes, 
as  president;  Fred  S. 
Wilson,  as  vice-presi- 
dent; W.  J.  B.  Stokes, 
treasurer;  and  Robert 
J.  Stokes,  son  of  W.  J. 
B.,  secretary  and  fac- 
tory manager. 

Mr.  AVilson  went  to 
Chicago  in  1911  to  open 
up  a  factory  branch. 
This  once  under  way, 
the  Thermoid  Company 
began  considering  the 
advisability  of  locating 
another  branch  on  the 
Pacific  Coast.  In  this 
connection  it  was  taken 
into  consideration  that 
the  opening  of  the 
Panama  Canal  would 
make  California  and  New  Jersey 
next-door  neighbors,  and  that  a 
vessel  loaded  with  goods  within  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  of  the  Thermoid  fac- 
tory at  Trenton,  could  be  unloaded  at 
the  very  doors  of  the  concern's  Pa- 
cific Coast  warehouse.  It  w'as  decided 
that  one  member  of  the  company  should 
be  sent  here,  to  take  up  his  residence 
on  this  coast  and  become  a  part  of  it. 
And  in  1913  Mr.  Wilson,  chosen  for  the 
place  by  his  associates,  came  to  San 
Francisco. 

The  Thermoid  Rubber  Company, 
whose  local  branch  office  is  in  the 
Monadnock  building,  is  known  through- 
out the  world  for  its  Thermoid  Brake 
Lining  and  Nassau  Tires.  The  Nassau 
owes  part  of  its  fame  to  the  fact  that 
it  is  the  tire  used  by  nearly  all  automo- 
bile racers  of  the  day.  The  Peugeot 
Car  in  which  Dario  Resta  won  both  the 
Grand  Prix  and  Vanderbilt  Cup  races 
at  the  Panama-Pacific  Exposition,  was 
equipped  for  both  races  with  the  same 
set  of  Nassaus.  And  the  tires  would 
last    through    another   race    easily. 

The  business  of  the  Thermoid  com- 
pany has  been  built  up  on  the  strength 
of  honest  goods,  honest  treatment  and 
honest  advertising.  It  believes  that  a 
"white  lie"  ,  is  no  whiter  when  mixed 
with  printer's  ink.  And  as  proof  of  the 
wisdom  of  this  policy,  its  factory  has 
for  more  than  four  years  been  running 
23   hours  a   day. 


336 


i 


JOHN  RALPH  WILSON 


THE  day  of  the  long-winded  law- 
orator,  whose  aim  in  the  conduct 
of  a  case  in  court  is  to  lead  the 
jury  into  a  maze  of  perplexities, 
is  past.  Tlie  lawyer  who  succeeds  in 
this  decade  is  he  who  sums  up  the 
salient  points  of  his  argument  and  pre- 
sents  them  to  the 
jurors  in  compact,  con- 
crete form.  He  is  the 
man,  in  short,  who  em- 
ploys facts  instead  of 
vain  expoundings  to 
win;  who  brings  fortli 
the  principles  of  law 
and  the  cases  bearing 
clearly  on  the  issue, 
and  concerns  himself 
with  these  alone. 

This  is  the  opinion, 
as  often  expressed  to 
his  friends  and  associ- 
ates, of  John  Ralph 
Wilson,  San  Francisco 
attorney,  wliose  own 
legal  record  proves  his 
contention.  There  are 
few  legal  practitioners 
in  California  who,  in 
the  past  few  years, 
have  so  consistently 
won  what  they  set  out 
for  and  have  added 
such  a  number  of 
favorable  court  rulings 
and  jury  verdicts  to 
their  credit. 

Mr.  Wilson's  record 
has  been  made  possible  by  his  careful 
preparation  of  cases.  He  works  on  his 
theory  of  isolating  one  or  more  points 
that  form  the  crux  of  the  case,  then 
driving  those  points  home  to  the  jury 
without  attempt  at  blandishment.  The 
jury,  unhampered  by  complexities,  does 
the  rest. 

Being  the  son  of  a  Methodist  Epis- 
copal minister,  whose  pastorate  was 
changed  at  regular  intervals,  John 
Ralph  Wilson's  early  schooling  was 
somewhat  intermittent  and  was  ob- 
tained in  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia 
and  New  York.  He  was  born  at  Wil- 
mington, Delaware,  April  13,  1878,  to 
Rev.  John  A.  B.  Wilson  and  Mary  E. 
(Jefferson)  Wilson  and  is  descended 
from  original  Cavalier  stock. 

After  receiving  all  but  one  year's 
preparation  for  college  Mr.  Wilson 
moved  to  Los  Angeles  with  his  parents 
in  1894.  There,  under  a  private  tutor, 
he  crowded  the  final  preparatory  year 
into  three  months  and  entered  the  Uni- 
versity of  Southern  California  in  1895. 
Here  he  did  nearly  three  years'  work 
in  two,  then  entered  the  laW  offices  of 
Wells,  Works  &  Lee  and  for  two  years 
more  studied  under  the  personal  direc- 
tion of  Colonel  G.  Wiley  Wells.  In 
December,  1899,  he  was  admitted  to  the 
bar  and  set  up  a  private  practice  in  San 
Francisco. 

Mr.  Wilson  today  is  counsel  for  a 
number  of  casualty  companies.  For  five 
years  he  has  been  trial  attorney  for  the 
Pennsylvania    Casualty    Company    and 


since  1912  has  represented  the  liability 
department  of  the  Massachusetts 
Bonding  and  Insurance  Company.  Since 
the  automobile  business  became  a  great 
industry  he  has  been  counsel  for 
several  large  Eastern  automobile  con- 
cerns, as  well  as  for  a  number  of 
Eastern  manufac- 
turers. 

Several  of  his  clients, 
wealthy  landowners, 
leave  to  Mr.  Wilson  the 
handling  of  their  prop- 
erty. He  has  put  on  a 
number  of  subdivision 
projects  and  for  a  long 
time  has  operated  the 
business  of  one  of  the 
large  companies  deal- 
ing in  farm  lands,  with 
holdings  in  various 
parts  of  the  State.  He 
is  a  director  of  the 
Venitia  Company  and 
also  its  general  coun- 
sel in  its  new  subdi- 
vision near  San  Rafael, 
Marin  County.  He  is 
also  a  director  of  and 
general  counsel  for  the 
Realty  Mortgage  Com- 
pany of  San  Francisco. 
In  1904,  in  litigation 
involving  the  estate  of 
the  late  Thomas  J. 
Clunie,  he  represented 
the  widow.  The  estate 
was  valued  at  $1,100- 
000.  Before  the  case  came  to  a  final 
hearing  Mr.  Wilson  obtained  for  his 
client  one  of  the  most  satisfying  settle- 
ments in  the  history  of  local  probate 
matters.  Another  interesting  bit  of 
litigation  in  which  Mr.  Wilson  has 
figured  is  the  case  of  alleged  fraud 
against  the  promoters  of  the  Dabney 
Oil  Company.  About  $750,000  is  in- 
volved. The  case,  after  going  once  to 
the  Supreme  Court,  is  now  in  shape  for 
the  trial  in  the  lower  court.  Still  an- 
other notable  case  was  his  successful 
defense  of  certain  suits  in  eminent 
domain  instituted  by  the  Central 
Pacific  Railway  when  it  was  about  to 
build   the   Rockland-Colfax   cutoff. 

In  addition  to  his  corporation  and 
probate  work,  which  is  heavy,  Mr. 
Wilson  has  a  general  civil  practice  that 
takes  him  all  over  the  State.  He  is 
active  in  civic  matters  and  at  one  time 
was  prominent  in  Republican  politics. 
In  1907,  at  the  Republican  convention 
of  San  Francisco,  he  was  chairman  of 
the  minority  that  made  the  fight  for 
Taylor  for  mayor.  On  another  occasion 
he  ran  for  the  State  Senate  from  the 
Forty-sixth  district  and  lost  in  a  hot, 
three-cornered  campaign  by  only  about 
150  votes. 

Mr.  Wilson  was  married  April  15, 
1903,  at  Alameda,  to  Miss  Emilie  Duryea 
Mason,  of  an  early  American  family  of 
Mayflower  stock  and  a  descendant  of 
the  Colonial  Governors.  The  couple 
have  one  daughter,  Emilie  Mason 
Wilson,  aged  eight. 


337 


GEORGE    WINGFIELD 


PERHAPS  the  most  interesting^  lives 
in  this  country  to  contemplate 
are  those  of  the  men  who,  start- 
ing with  nothing,  have  achieved 
fame  and  fortune  by  their  own  initia- 
tive and  strengtli.  One  of  such  men  in 
the  Western  country  is  Georg'e  Wing- 
field  of  Nevada,  a  man 
who  now,  before  he  is 
forty  years  of  age,  is 
counted  among  t  h  »j 
wealthy  men  of  the 
country,  is  a  potent 
factor  in  the  mining 
and  banking  world  and 
i  s  favorably  known 
from  one  end  of  the 
nation    to    the    other. 

George  Wingfield 
was  born  in  Port 
Smith,  Arkansas,  Au- 
gust 16,  1876,  the  son 
of  Thomas  Y.  and 
Martha  M.  Wingfleld. 
His  parents  came 
across  the  plains  and 
settled  near  Lakeview, 
Oregon.  It  was  here 
that  "Wingfield  spent 
h  i  s  youth,  attending 
the  public  schools  and 
working  on  his  fa- 
ther's   ranch. 

From  Lakeview  he 
went  to  Golconda,  Ne- 
vada, when  he  had 
barely  reached  his  ma-- 
jority  and  interested 
himself  in  mining  and  other  pursuits. 
He  made  two  or  three  small  fortunes 
but  these  he  lost.  Finally  he  went  to 
Tonopah,  when  the  mining  boom 
started   there   in   the   spring  of   1900. 

Before  leaving  Golconda,  George  S. 
Nixon,  who  later  became  U.  S.  Senator 
from  Nevada,  told  Wingfleld  that  if  he 
saw  anything  that  looked  good  around 
Tonopah  to  let  him  know.  Acting  upon 
this  suggestion,  Wingfleld  advised  Nix- 
on that  he  thought  the  opportunities 
around  Tonopah  excellent.  Nixon  there- 
upon joined  Wingfleld  in  several  en- 
terprises, Wingfleld  having  accumu- 
lated some   money  in   the  meantime. 

It  has  been  rumored  that  Senator 
Nixon  "grul)staked"  Wingfield,  but  this 
is  contrary  to  fact.  The  .joint  invest- 
ments finally  resulted  in  the  partner- 
ship of  Nixon  and  Wingfield,  which 
later  developed  into  one  of  the  biggest 
that  the  West  has  ever  known — a  part- 
nership that  involved  millions,  but  with- 
out a  written  agreement,  and  which 
depended  wholly  upon  the  personal 
honor  and  integrity  of  the  two  men. 

While  Tonopah  was  booming  a  min- 
ing strike  occurred  at  the  camp  then 
called  Grandpa,  which  later  became  the 
w^orld-famous  Goldfleld.  Nixon  and 
Wingfield  secured,  vv^ith  others,  a  lease 
on  the  Florence  mine,  from  which  they 
took  out  several  hundred  thousand 
dollars  net.  They  then  became  inter- 
ested in  various  other  leading  mining 
properties  in  Goldfield  and  also  estab- 
lished the  banking  house  of  .Tohn  S. 
Cook    &    Company. 

Believing  thoroughly  in  the  camp's 
future,     Wingfleld     gradually     acquired 


more  partnership  stocks.  He  studied 
the  situation  thoroughly  and  with  the 
aid  of  his  associates  determined  upon 
those  properties  which  should  show 
the  greatest  promise  and  which  would 
command  the  situation.  These  prop- 
erties were  the  Combination,  Mohawk, 
Laguna,  Red  Top, 
.Tumbo  and  Gold- 
lield  Mining  Company. 
Having  gained  con- 
trol  of  these  he 
launched  and  carried 
the  idea  of  consolidat- 
ing  them  into  one 
company,  known  a  s 
the  Goldfleld  Consoli- 
dated Mines  Co.,  with 
a  capital  stock  of 
.$.'>0,000,000,  of  which 
approximately  $35,000,- 
000  in  stock  was  is- 
s  u  e  d  to  absorb  the 
subsidiary  companies. 
By  the  end  of  1914  the 
company  produced 
$44,000,000,  made  a  net 
recovery  of  $29,000,000 
and  paid  a  total  of 
$27,398,215  in  dividends 
or  $7.70  per  share.  As 
far  as  known  this  is  a 
record. 

Nixon  and  Wing- 
field extended  their  in- 
vestments to  banking, 
live  stock,  real  estate 
and  other  business 
pursuits  and  acquired  the  Nixon  Na- 
tional Bank  of  Reno  and  the  First 
National  Bank  of  Winnemucca.  In  1909 
they  decided  upon  a  friendly  dissolu- 
tion of  the  partnership.  The  banks — 
with  the  exception  of  that  of  John 
S.  Cook  &  Co.  at  Goldfleld — the  real 
estate  and  other  property  went  to 
Senator  Nixon,  while  the  mining  and 
other  interests  passed  to  Mr.  Wing- 
field. 

In  1912  Senator  Nixon  died  and  Gov- 
ernor Oddie  appointed  Mr.  Wingfield  as 
United  States  Senator  from  Nevada. 
But  Mr.  Wingfield  declined  to  accept 
as  he  wished  to  devote  all  his  time  to 
his  business  and  the  upbuilding  of  the 
State. 

Shortly  thereafter  the  Nixon  heirs 
requested  Mr.  Wingfleld  to  act  as  presi- 
dent of  the  Senator's  banking  insti- 
tutions in  Nevada.  Later  the  interest 
of  the  Nixon  estate  in  these  banks  was 
sold  to  Mr.  Wingfield  and  he  is  now 
president  and  controlling  factor  in  the 
Nixon  National  Bank  of  Reno,  First 
National  Bank  of  Winnemucca,  Bank 
of  Nevada  Savings  &  Trust  Co.  of 
Reno,  Carson  "Valley  Bank  of  Carson 
and  John  S.  Cook  &  Co.,  Bankers,  of 
Goldfleld.  In  addition  he  is  president 
of  the  Goldfleld  Consolidated  Mines 
Co.,  and  of  numerous  other  mining  cor- 
porations, and  has  extensive  ranch  and 
live  stock  interests. 

Mr.  Wingfleld  believes  in  spending 
his  money  where  he  made  it.  He  has 
done  many  things  for  Nevada,  simply 
because  he  thought  it  would  help  make 
it  grow  and  prosper — where  the  profit 
to    himself   was   very   little   or   nothing. 


3.38 


f 


HYRUM   SMITH   WOOLLEY 


EVERYTHING  that  Hyrum  Smith 
Woolley  has  undertaken  in  the 
way  of  business  has  been  on  an 
unusually  large  scale.  When  he 
was  ranching  in  Idaho  he  had  a  place 
of  15,000  acres;  when,  later  on,  he  fur- 
nished the  timber  for  the  construction 
of  the  Oregon  Short 
Line,  he  furnished  all 
the  timber;  today  he  is 
back  of  a  big  mining 
development  project  in 
which  40,000  acres  of 
rich  alumina  nitrate 
bearing  lands  are  in- 
volved. 

Mr.  Woolley  is  a  na- 
tive of  Salt  Lake  City, 
Utah.  He  was  born 
July  16,  1S52.  the  son 
of  Edwin  D.  Woolley, 
merchant  and  farmer, 
and  of  Mary  Ellen 
(Wilding)  TS^oolley. 
Between  the  ages  of 
seven  and  sixteen  Mr. 
Woolley  attended 
school  in  the  winter 
and  worked  during  the 
summer  months.  Cir- 
cumstances made  it 
necessary  that  he  be- 
gin earning  a  liveli- 
hood, and  the  remain- 
der of  his  education  he 
has  gained  in  the  great 
school  of  business. 

Upon  striking  out 
for  himself,  Mr.  Woolley  determined  to 
learn  the  blacksmithing  trade.  He  se- 
cured a  position  as  apprentice,  and  so 
rapidly  did  he  advance  himself  that  six 
months  later  he  was  doing  a  journey- 
man's work,  and  in  two  years  had  be- 
come a  full-fledged  journeyman.  He 
broke  all  records  and  took  the  State 
prize  by  completing  the  building  of  a 
"wagon  w^ithin  a  year  after  he  entered 
the  business. 

For  four  years  Mr.  Woolley  carried 
on  his  trade.  Then,  seized  with  the 
wanderlust,  he  went  to  the  Sandwich 
Islands.  He  became  proficient  in  speak- 
ing the  Hawaiian  language  and  for  four 
years  was  in  charge  of  a  sugar  factory 
on  the  plantation  of  Laiea,  Island  of 
Oahu.  Returning  to  tlie  continent  in 
1877,  he  took  over  a  15,000-acre  ranch  in 
Bannock  County,  Idaho,  and  began  oper- 
ating it.  At  the  same  time  he  started  a 
general  merchandise  store  at  Paris, 
Bear  Lake  County,  Idaho.     . 

When  the  construction  of  the  Oregon 
Short  Line  began  in  1882,  from  McCam- 
mon,  Idaho,  to  Ham's  Fork,  Wyoming, 
Mr.  Woolley  secured  the  contract  to 
furnish  all  the  necessary  timber  for 
ties  and  bridges.  The  right  to  cut  tim- 
ber from  along  the  180-mile  right-of- 
way  was  vested  in  him  by  the  Govern- 
ment. Mr.  "U^ooUey  delivered  every 
stick  of  the  wood  by  wagon.  He  had 
as  high  as  150  teams  of  horses  going 
at  once  on  hauls  ranging  from  10  to 
150  miles,  and  had  seven  portable  saw- 
mills in  full  operation.  He  did  not  com- 
plete   his    work    until    1883. 


In  1S85  Mr.  Woolley's  store  was 
burned  down  and  thereafter  for  ten 
years  he  confined  himself  to  ranching. 
He  handled  from  5,000  to  10,000  head  of 
cattle  each  year,  and  when  Colonel  W. 
F.  Cody  ("Buffalo  Bill")  opened  his 
Wild  West  show  at  the  Chicago  World's 
Pair,  Mr.  Woolley  fur- 
nished him  his  initial 
150  head  of  horses. 

Leaving  Idaho  in 
1895,  Mr.  Woolley  went 
to  New  York  City  and 
engaged  in  mining  and 
land  promotion.  In 
1900,  the  year  of  the 
big  gold  rush  to  Nome, 
he  organized,  with  Ja- 
cob Furst  of  Seattle, 
the  Pacific  Abstract 
Title  &  Trust  Com- 
panj',  with  headquar- 
ters at  Nome.  He  had 
charge  of  this  business 
until  1901,  when  ill- 
ness compelled  him  to 
give  it  up  and  return 
to  New  York. 

In    1901   IMr.   T\^oolley 
invented     the    Woolley 
Smokeless    Furnace, 
which   is   still   the   best 
smokeless    furnace    i  n 
the    "world    "which    acts 
by   natural    draft.      Be- 
tween    800      and     1,000 
of     the     furnaces     are 
in     use     in     Pittsburgh 
alone     today.       Mr.     "^^ooUey     disposed 
of     his     patent,     however,     some     years 
ago. 

Mr.  Woolley  returned  west  to  Nevada 
in  1907,  and  was  interested  in  mining 
there  until  1910,  when  he  went  to  Port- 
land and  from  there  came  to  California, 
.•settling  near  Crescent  City,  where  he 
lias  remained  most  of  the  time  since 
and  where  he  at  present  has  a  large 
land  project. 

It  was  while  investigating  a  placer 
mining  property  in  Harney  County, 
Oregon,  that  Mr.  Woolley  discovered  a 
vast  deposit  of  40,000  acres  of  alumina 
nitrate.  Under  his  direction  the  land 
has  been  located  for  development. 
From  present  indications  this  is  the 
largest  and  highest  grade  deposit  of  its 
kind  ever  found  in  the  United  States, 
and  the  discovery  is  considered  of  par- 
ticular importance  because  it  is  believed 
it  will  make  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment entirely  independent  of  Chile  and 
the  German  Empire  for  its  supply  of 
nitrates  and  related  products,  so  nec- 
essary in  the  manufacture  of  explosives. 
Chemical  analysis  of  the  Harney  County 
ore  has  shown  a  contei  t  of  20  per  cent 
potassium  nitrate  and  23  per  cent 
alumina,  and  even  the  residue,  red 
oxide  of  iron,  is  of  commercial  value. 
Mr.  Woolley's  time  is  at  present  de- 
voted to  the  development  of  this 
project. 

In  1873  Mr.  Woolley  was  married  in 
Salt  Lake  City  to  Minerva  Rich.  He  is 
the  father  of  nine  children,  eight  of 
whom  are  still  living. 


339 


CHARLES  E.  PIPER 


THE  man  who  has  a  reputation 
for  straight  dealing  among  liis 
fellows  has  something  whose 
monetary  value  to  him  is  ex- 
ceeded only  by  its  mor- 
al value.  Such  a  rep- 
utation has  Charles  E. 
Piper,  attorney  at  law, 
of  San  Francisco.  No 
lawyer  stands  higher 
in  this  respect  than  he. 
A  judge  on  this 
Coast  tells  of  a  case 
tried  a  few  years  ago 
in  Seattle  in  which  the 
attorneys  for  the 
plaintiff,  believing  the 
case  could  not  be  won, 
abandoned  it.  The 
plaintiff  had  a  just 
cause  but  the  evidence 
available  was  o  v  e  r- 
whelmingly  for  the  de- 
fendant. When  the  evi- 
dence was  all  in  spec- 
tators and  witnesses 
went  home,  taking  for 
granted  what  tlie  ver- 
dict would  be.  The  de- 
fense attorney  declined 
to  argue  the  case,  say- 
ing there  could  be  but 
one  verdict  and  that  for  his  client 
The    trial    judge    communicated    to    Mr 


Piper  that  it  would  be  a  waste  of 
time  to  argue  the  matter  to  the  jury. 
The  clerk  and  bailiff  volunteered  to 
tell  him  that  lie  was  a  fool  for  trying 
such  a  one-sided  issue. 
INIr.  Piper  made  his 
argument,  however, 

and  the  jury  rendered 
a  verdict  in  full  for 
the  plaintiff. 

Mr  Piper  was  born 
in  Illinois  in  1872.  He 
completed  the  courses 
prescribed  in  the  public 
schools,  business  col- 
lege, classical  college, 
divinity  school,  college 
of  law  and  schools  of 
oratory.  He  attended 
Yale  University  i  n 
1898-1899.  He  received 
the  collegiate  degree 
of  A.  B.  in  1898  and  the 
law  degree  of  LiL.  B. 
in  1903.  He  does  a  gen- 
eral practice  and  from 
the  beginning  has  had 
unusual    success. 

Mr.   Piper   is  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Greek  letter 
fraternity    A.    T.    O.,    a 
Knight  Templar,  mem- 
ber   of    the    32nd    degree    Scottish    Rite 
and  of  the  Mystic  Shrine. 


J.  A.  ELSTON 


J    A.   Elston,  United  States  Congress- 
man-elect from  the  Sixth  District 
•     of  California,  owes  his  being  sent 
to  Washington  as  a  representative 
of  the    people   to    the    fact    that    he   has 
constantly  applied  himself  to  his  work. 

Congressman  Elston  was  born  at 
Woodland,  California, 
February  10.  1875.  The 
basis  of  his  education 
h  e  received  in  Hes- 
perian College  o  f 
Woodland,  of  which 
his  father,  A.  M. 
Elston,  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century  was  presi- 
dent.  Following  his 
graduation  in  1892,  Mr. 
Elston  entered  the  Uni- 
versity of  California, 
which  he  left  in  1897 
with  the  degree  of  Ph. 
B.  One  year  he  was 
president  of  the  Asso- 
ciated Student  Body, 
another  editor  of  the 
University  of  Califor- 
n  i  a  Magazine,  played 
baseball  and  belonged 
t  o  t  h  e  Delta  Upsilon 
fraternity  and  the  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  honor 
fraternity.  For  two 
years,  1911-13,  he  was 
president  of  the  Uni- 
versity Alumni  Asso- 
ciation. 

For  a  year  following 
his  graduation  Mr.  Elston  was  principal 
of    the    public    schools    of    Watsonville. 
Then  for  a  year  and  a  half  he  was  prin- 


cipal of  the  Intermediate  High  School  of 
Berkeley  and  a  member  of  the  Alameda 
County  Board  of  Education.  In  the  fall 
of  1899  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  be- 
ginning his  practice  in  San  Francisco. 
His  first  public  office  was  his  appoint- 
ment as  executive  secretary  to  Governor 
I'ardoe.  He  held  the 
position  for  a  little 
more  than  three  years 
when  he  became  pri- 
vate secretary,  vice  A. 
B.  Nye,  who  became 
State  Comptroller. 
For  two  years  Mr. 
Elston  ■was  attorney 
for  the  State  Board  of 
Health,  resigning  to 
engage  in  private  law 
practice,  with  offices  in 
Berkeley  and  Oakland. 
In  1911  he  was  ap- 
pointed by  Governor 
Johnson  to  the  board 
of  trustees  of  the  State 
Institution  for  the 
Deaf  and  Blind,  re- 
signing in  1914  upon 
his  election  to  C  o  n  - 
gress  by  a  plurality  of 
nearly   6,000   votes. 

Congressman  Elston 
was  married  in  May, 
1911,  to  Miss  Tallu- 
lah  Le  Conte,  grand- 
daughter of  Professor 
John  Le  Conte,  first 
president  of  the  University  of  California. 
They  have  one  child,  a  daughter,  two 
years  old. 


340 


STUART  CHISHOLM 


How  inconsistent  it  is,  says  Stuart 
Chishiolm,  for  one  who  erects 
a  magnificent  liouse  costing  fif- 
teen or  twenty  thousand  dollars 
to  neglect  to  beautify 
the  surrounding  land- 
scape, the  home's  set- 
ting. For  the  outdoors, 
particularly  in  C  a  1  i  - 
fornia,  is  as  much  our 
real  home  as  the  house 
itself. 

Stuart  Chisholm, 
landscape  architect, 
went  to  Europe  and  for 
three  years  he  delved 
into  this  and  into  gen- 
eral principles  of  art 
and  composition,  vis- 
iting dozens  of  famous 
gardens  in  France, 
Germany,  Italy,  Eng- 
land and  Scotland.  In 
1914  he  again  spent  six 
months  abroad,  in 
England,  in  an  inten- 
sive study  of  formal 
gardening. 

Since  1910  Mr.  Chis- 
holm has  been  practic- 
ing landscaping  in  Cal- 
ifornia. The  first  two 
years  were  marked  by 
his  connection  with  the 
planting  of  the  800- 
acre  estate  of  F.  W.  Sharon  at  Menlo 
Park.  Subsequently  he  landscaped  the 
estates    of   William    Cranston    and    E.   J. 


Thomas  at  Los  Altos,  that  of  Gale 
Carter  in  Marin  County  and  that  of  Mor- 
timer Fleishhacker  at  Woodside.  He 
also  laid  out  the  grounds  for  the  Illin- 
ois State  Building  at 
the  Panama  -  Pacific 
Exposition. 

i'eiliaps  Mr.  C  h  i  s  - 
holm's  most  distinctive 
work  thus  far  has  been 
on  the  beautiful  Alex- 
a  n  d  e  r  Russell  home 
bordering  the  sea 
along  the  Great  High- 
way. Reclaimed  from 
the  wind-blown  sand 
dunes,  the  garden  has 
upset  horticultural 
rules  right  and  left. 

Several  months  of 
the  present  year  Mr. 
Chisholm  spent  in  the 
East  where  he  planned 
a  number  of  land- 
scaped estates,  includ- 
ing those  of  G.  Brinton 
Roberts  and  Dr.  Alfred 
Stengel  of  Philadel- 
phia; E.  Nelson  Fell, 
"Creedmoor,"  Warren- 
ton,  Va. ;  Lucien  Keith, 
Colonel  Dorst,  and 
Fairfax  Harrison,  all 
of  Warrenton,  Va. ;  John 
S.  Barbour  of  Wash- 
ington, D.  C,  and  tlie  800  acres  of  G. 
Temple  Gwathmey  at  Fauquier  Springs, 
Va.,    along   the    Rappahannock   P.iver. 


341 


/   / 


I    I    '\ 


Index  to  Journalism  in 

California 

and 

Pacific  Coast 

and 

Exposition  Biographies 


INDEX 

Journalism  in  California 


— A— 

ABEND   ZEITUNG,   career    of,   v-37. 

ACCESSORY  TRANSIT  CO.,  proposes 
to  dig  a  canal,  vi-4S. 

ADAMS    PRESS,    invented    1S35,    v-35. 

ADVERTISEMENTS,  preponderate 

over  reading  matter  in  1S50,  ii-11;  ad- 
vertisers not  eager  for  big  type,  vii-53; 
growth  of  summer  resort,  xx-166;  great 
volume  of  in  Golden  Jubilee  edition  of 
Chronicle,  xxiii-190. 

AGITATIONS,  sand  lot  troubles,  xii-91. 

AGRICULTURE,  earliest  Americans 
found  hopes  on,  i-6,  expansion  of  cereal 
industry,  vi-51;  development  of  in  State, 
vi-51;  waning  glory  of  cereal  crops, 
xv-120. 

ALASKA,  gold  discoveries  in  the  Klon- 
dike, xviii-151. 

ALTA  CALIFORNIA,  San  Francisco's 
first  daily,  ii-15;  career  of,  v-36;  ab- 
sorbs Times,  ix-'i3;  its  publication  office 
and  editorial  rooms,  xiii-iib;  its  many 
changes  of  ownership,  xiii-100;  David  C. 
Broderick  one  time  owner  of,  xii-lUO;  de- 
clining prestige  of,  xvi-125;  disappear- 
ance of,  xviii-145;  sold  to  McCrellish  & 
Co.,  xviii-145. 

AMERICAN,   career  of,  v-37. 

AMERICAN  FLAG,  charges  that  Leg- 
islature was  corrupted,  vii-61. 

AMERICAN  PRESS  ASSOCIATION, 
uses  railway   wires,   xvi-129. 

ANDERSEN,  E.  J.,  first  secretary  of 
Charles  de  Young,  xvi-132;  writer  on 
naval  subjects,  xvi-132. 

ANNEXATION,  California  by  the 
United  Slates,  i-1;  of  Cuba  favored, 
iii-20. 

ANNUAL  EDITIONS,  a  Chronicle  fea- 
ture, xv-120;  Chronicle  prints  SO-page  an- 
nual   1907,    xxi-176. 

ANZA.  Juan  Baptista  de,  names  Mis- 
sion  Dolores,   i-1. 

ARGONAUT,  under  management  of 
Somers  &  Pixley,  xiii-105. 

ARIZONA,  Chronicle  advocates  admis- 
sion of  to  Union,  xviii-150. 

ASSOCIATED  PRESS,  see  also  West- 
ern Associated  Press,  New  York  Asso- 
ciated Press  and  Chronicle  Press  Asso- 
ciation, xvi-130;  New  York,  its  early 
patrons  in  California,  xvi-129. 

ATHENAEUM  and  California  Critic, 
career  of,  v-37. 

ATHERTON,  Gertrude,  her  early  in- 
clination for  journalism,  xix-160. 

AUSTRALIA,  much  space  to  intelli- 
gence from,   ii-12. 

AUTHORS,  their  contributions  made 
acceptable    by    illustrations,   xix-155. 

AUTHORS'  CARNIVAL,  Chronicle  re- 
ports  at    great    length,    xv-118. 

AVIATION,  Chronicle  pictures  its  fu- 
ture   in    1S81,   xiii-103. 


— B— 

BANKING,  loose  methods,  x-S2;  failure 
of  Bank  of  California,  x-81;  Bank  of 
California  rehabilitated,  x-S3;  Nevada 
Bank  founded,  x-83;  San  Francisco  banks 
victimized  by  Pinney,  xi-S7;  several 
banks  close  as  result  of  Pinney's  frauds- 
xi-S7;  exposure  of  loose  methods  by 
Chronicle  cause  adoption  of  laws  to  regu- 
late, xi-S9;  Commission,  created  as  re- 
sult of  Pinney  exposure,  xi-S9. 

BAGGETT,  W.  T.,  Hearst's  agent  in 
purchase    of   Examiner,   xvi-126. 

BALLINGER,  Frank,  reporter  and  city 
editor,  xiii-lOo. 

BARNES,  W.  H.  L.,  defends  Evening- 
Post  and  is  decorated,  x-79;  makes  speecii 
at  Midwinter  Exposition  ground  break- 
ing, xvii-llO. 

BARNES,  George  E.,  criticises  work  of 
eaily  reporters,  vii-57. 

BARTLETT,  Washington  A.,  fixes 
name  of  San  Francisco,  i-7. 

BARTLETT,  William,  editorial  writer 
for  Bulletin,  xviii-14  6. 

BAUSMAN,  William,  editorial  writer, 
xiii-105. 

BAY  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO,  discovered 
by  Portola"s  hunting  party,  i-2;  entrance 
named  by  Fremont,  i-2;  Captain  Richard- 
son monopolizes  its  traffic,  i-3;  importance 
of  recognized,  vi-4  7;  water  front  troubles, 
vi-49;  attempt  to  change  bulkhead  line 
frustrated,  vi-49;  dock  constructed  at 
Hunter's  Point  vi-50;  offer  to  improve 
San  Francisco  water  front,  vi-50. 

BEECHER  TRIAL,  reported  at  great 
length  by  San  Francisco  papers,  xiv-114. 

BENICIA,  fails  to  appropriate  name 
San    Francisco,   i-7. 

BENJAMIN,  Benny,  sporting  editor  of 
Chronicle,    xxi-177. 

BENNETT,  Ira  E.,  star  reporter  and 
Washington  correspondent  of  Chronicle, 
xix-159. 

BENTON,  CRITIC,  career  of,  v-37. 

BIG  BONANZA,  discovery  of  creates 
excitement,  x-79;  enormous  output  of  the 
mines,    xi-84. 

BIERCE,  Ambrose,  his  work  on  News 
Letter,  xiii-105;  on  staff  of  Examiner, 
xix-160. 

BIGELOW,  Harry,  reporter  and  maga- 
zine publisher,  xix-159. 

BIMETALLISM,  book  on  by  John  P. 
Young  published  in  single  edition  of 
Chronicle,  xviii-151;  Bimetallist  of  Lon- 
don says  publication  of  Young's  book 
was  unprecedented  newspaper  enterprise, 
xviii-152. 

BLACK  FLAGS,  San  Francisco  Chron- 
icle's correspondent  interviews,  xiii-104. 

BOARD  OF  EQUALIZATION,  created 
by  Constitution  of  1S79,  xii-95. 

BOHEMIAN  CLUB,  honors  memory  of 
Daniel  O'Connell,  xiii-106;  newspaper 
members   of,   xvi-114. 


345 


346 


Index 


BOSSISM,  Chris  Buckley,  Democratic 
boss,  xviii-74S;  people  indifferent  to  its 
consequences,    xxi-171. 

BOWMAN,  J.  F.,  death  of  in  1SS4, 
xvi-432. 

BRANNAN,  Samuel,  leader  of  jNIormon 
colony,  i-4 ;  withdraws  from  Alormon 
Colony,  1-6. 

BRIDGE,  first  bridge  built  in  Cali- 
fornia,   i-3. 

BRODERICK,  David  C,  his  early 
career,  iv-26;  killed  in  duel  by  Terry, 
vi-44;  political  career,  vi-45;  Legislature 
honors  his  memory,  vii-59;  one  time 
owner  of  Alta  California,  xiii-100. 

BROOKLYN,  brings  Mormon  colony  to 
Terba  Buena,  1-4. 

BONNER,  John,  editorial  writer  of 
The  Chronicle,  xix-159. 

BOOTH,  Newton,  vetoes  bill  to  relieve 
Harry  Meiggs  of  criminal  charges,  iv-32. 

BRYCE,  James,  English  historian, 
criticises  Constitution  of  1879,  xii-9l; 
says  Chronicle  was  well  written,  xiii-103. 

BUCKLEY,  Chris,  the  blind  boss  of 
the  Democrats,  xviii-147;  advocates  dol- 
lar limit,  xx-163. 

BUGLE,   career  of.   v-37. 

BULKHEAD  LINE,  San  Francisco  har- 
bor,   vi-49. 

BULLETIN  (San  Francisco),  first  pub- 
lished in  1855,  ii-15;  its  sudden  rise  of 
popularity,  iv-27;  advocates  lynch  law, 
iv-28;  strenuously  advocates  retrench- 
ment, v-34;  abandons  general  for  specific 
headings,  ix-73;  course  of  shaped  by 
George  K.  Fitch,  ix-73;  vehemently  op- 
poses Goat  island  scheme,  ix-75;  its  early 
literary  supplement,  xiii-99;  its  publica- 
tion office  and  editorial  rooms,  xiii-99;  a 
morning  paper  in  early  days,  xiii-100; 
ignores  railway  abuses  after  1879,  xvi- 
125;  avoids  big  heads,  xviii-146;  old 
timers  applaud  its  hostility  to  expendi- 
ture, xviii-146;  opposes  Spring  Valley 
purchase,  xviii-147:  conduct  under  man- 
agement of  R.  A.  Crothers,  xx-162:  Fre- 
mont Older,  managing  editor,  xx-162;  one 
of  three  daily  survivors  from  pioneer 
days,  xxii-180. 

BUNKER.  William  M.,  sells  Evening 
Keport,   xviii-145. 

BURKE,  H.  J.,  reporter  on  Call, 
xiii-104. 

BURLTNGAME,  W.  D.,  cashier  of 
Chronicle,    xxi-177. 

BURNHAM  &  ROOT,  architects  of 
Chronicle  building,  Market,  Geary  and 
Kearny  streets,  xvii-135;  devise  a  plan 
for  beautifying  San  Francisco,  xx-166. 

BUSINESS,  promoted  by  adhering  to 
gold  money,   vii-61. 


— c— 

CALIFORNIA.  Commodore  Sloat's 
proclamation  of  possession,  i-1 ;  made 
free  State  by  Monterey  convention, 
iii-19;  State  division  projects,  vi-45;  lo- 
cation   of  State  Capital,   vi-47. 

CALIFORNIA  CHRONICLE,  career  of, 
v-37. 

CALIFORNIA  P^ARMER,  career  of, 
V-37. 

CALIFORNIA  MAIL,  career  of,  v-37. 


CALIFORNIA  REGISTER,  career  of. 
v-37. 

CALIFORNIA  STAR,  first  newspaper 
published  in  Yerba  Buena,  i-4;  first  num- 
ber appears,  i-6;  issues  a  boost  paper, 
i-6;  original  copy  in  Memorial  Museum, 
ii-8;  career  of,  v-36. 

CALIFORNIAN,  first  paper  published 
in  California,  i-5;  its  defective  plant,  i-5; 
removes  to  San  Francisco,  i-5;  career  of. 
v-36. 

CALL  (San  Francisco),  issued  at  12V2 
cents  a  week,  ix-73;  under  joint  owner- 
ship of  Fitch,  Simonion  and  I'ickering, 
ix-73;  its  publication  ottice  and  editorial 
rooms,  xiii-99;  fails  as  co-operative  ven- 
ture, xiii-100;  installs  a  French  printing 
press,  xiii-100;  indifferent  to  railway 
regulation,  xvi-125;  purchased  by  John 
D.  Spreckels,  xviii-146;  avoids  big  heads. 
xviii-14  6;  changes  made  after  its  pur- 
chase by  Spreckels.  xviii-149;  acquisition 
of  by  Spreckels  results  in  more  vigorous 
methods,  xx-162;  suspends  publication 
for  several  weeks,  xxi-176;  changes  of 
ownership  of.  xxii-lSO;  sold  to  M.  H.  de 
Young,  xxii-lSO;  extinction  of  causes 
much   comment,  xxii-181. 

CANALS,  early  consideration  of  de- 
sirability of  linking  Atlantic  and  Pa- 
cific, vi-4  7;  Vanderbilt's  Nicaragua 
project,   vi-48. 

CANNON,  Frank  J..  Coast  exchange 
editor  Chronicle,  xvi-133;  elected  United 
States    Senator,    xvi-133. 

CAPITAL,   location   of  State,  vi-47. 

CARTOONS,  increasing  use  of,  xx-16S. 

CASEY,  James  P.,  assailed  by  James 
King  of  William  in  Bulletin,  iv-29; 
shoots  James  King  of  William,  iv-29; 
hanged  by  the  Vigilantes,  iv-30. 

CATHOLIC  STANDARD,  career  of, 
v-37. 

CENTRAL  PACIFIC  RAILWAY,  its 
originators,  ix-75;  tries  to  grab  Goat 
island,   ix-75. 

CHALK  PROCESS,  described,  xvi-130; 
used   in   newspaper   illustrating,   xvi-130. 

CHARTERS  (San  Francisco),  adoption 
of  prevented  bv  fear  of  expenditure, 
xviii-146;  adoption  of  that  of  1898. 
xx-162;  cause  of  rejection  of  several, 
xx-161;  small  votes  cast  at  election  for, 
xx-162. 

CHARITIES,  newspapers  mainstay  of, 
xx-167;  lives  of  inmates  of  Children's 
Hospital  and  Relief  Home  brightened, 
xxii-lS6;  tovs  sent  to  orphans  of  war, 
xxii-186. 

CHESLEY,  James  G.,  cashier  of 
Chronicle,    xxi-177. 

CHINA,  conquest  of  advocated  by  San 
Francisco  editor,  iii-21. 

CHINESE,  crusade  against  immigra- 
tion, xv-120;  vote  of  California  on  exclu- 
sion, xv-120. 

CHIROGRAPHY,  bad  handwriting  of 
Joaciuin  Miller.  xix-15S. 

CHRISTIAN  ADVOCATE,  career  of. 
v-37. 

CHRISTIAN  OBSERVER,  career  of, 
v-37. 

CHRYSOPHYLAE,  first  name  given  to 
Golden   Gate,    i-2. 

CHRONICLE,  see  San  Francisco 
Chronicle. 


Index 


347 


CHRONICLE  PRESS  ASSOCIATION, 
formed  by  M.  H.  de  Young,  xvi-129; 
patrons  of,   xvi-129. 

CITY  EDITOR,  duties  of,  xix-157. 

CITY  EDITORS,  use  made  by  tliem  of 
teleplione,  xix-157;  of  Clironicle,  1S70- 
1896,  S.  P.  Sutherland,  A.  B.  Henderson, 
Horace  R.  Hudson,  Thomas  Garrett, 
Ernest   S.   Simpson,  xix-lGO. 

CITY  HALL,  its  excessive  cost  due  to 
conservatism,  xviii-146;  built  on  install- 
ment plan,  xviii-14  7;  not  satisfactory 
architecturally,  xviii-147. 

CIVIC  CENTER,  plans  for  projected, 
xx-166. 

CIVIC  IMPROVEMENT,  first  public 
work  in  California,  i-3;  Ralston's  ener- 
getic promotion  of,  x-Sl. 

CIVIL  WAR,  makes  business  prosper- 
ous in  San  Francisco,  v-36;  stimulates 
desire  for  news,  vi-42;  editorial  discus- 
sion on  eve  of,  vi-43;  high  cost  of  news 
paper  during,  vii-57;  inadequate  accounts 
of  local  movements,  vii-58;  attempt  of 
Southern  sympathizers  to  capture  a  Pa- 
cific Mail  steamer,  vii-5S;  a  minister  who 
sympathized  with  the  South,  vii-fiO;  Cali- 
fornia attitude  not  clearly  understood, 
vli-61;  history  of  specially  written  for 
Chronicle,  xv-121. 

CIRCULATION,  small  editions  printed 
in   pioneer  days,  iv-28. 

CLIMATE,  a  favorite  topic  in  the  BOs, 
v-41;  Chronicle's  exploitation  of  glories 
of  California,  xv-121;  that  of  California 
eulogized  by  Chronicle,  xviii-150;  Tetraz- 
zini  sings  in  open  air  on  Christmas  eve, 
1910,    xxi-178. 

CLIPPER  ships,  interest  in  their  ex- 
ploits,  vi-48. 

CLLTBS,  formation  of  women's  in  San 
Francisco,  xx-167. 

COFFEY,  James  V.,  editorial  writer 
and  reporter,  xiii-105;  member  of  Legis- 
lature and  chairman  of  San  Francisco 
delegation,  xiii-105;  many  times  re- 
elected to  Superior  Judgeship,  xiii-105. 

COLEMAN,  William  T.,  opposes  con- 
certed withdrawal  of  patronage  from 
Herald,   iv-30. 

COLTON  &  SEMPLE,  first  publishers 
of  California,  i-5. 

COLONIES,  from  South  objected  to, 
iii-20. 

COLUMBIAN  EXPOSITION,  M.  H. 
de  Young  appointed  Commissioner-at- 
Large  by  President  Harrison,  xvii-137. 

COMMERCIAL  ADVERTISER,  v-37. 

COMMITTEE  OP  FIFTY,  in  1906,  its 
admirable   work,  xxi-171. 

COMSTOCK,  discoveries  give  impetus 
to  business,  i.\-77. 

COMPOSING  ROOM,  it  ceases  to  dic- 
tate to  the  editor,  vii-53;  economies  ef- 
fected by  machines  offset  by  innovations, 
xix-156. 

CONSOLIDATION  ACT,  increases  po- 
lice force,  1856;  bristled  with  prohibi- 
tions, v-39:  its  system  of  checks  and 
balances,    xviii-146. 

CONSTITUTION,  first  convention  at 
Monterey,    iii-19. 

CONS'riTUTION  of  1879,  misrepre- 
sented, xii-91;  antagonized  by  corpora- 
tions, xii-92;  fight  for  financed  by 
Chronicle,  xii-92;  not  a  sand  lot  instru- 
ment, xii-93;  convention  called  before 
sand     lot     troubles,     xii-93;     convention 


called  by  Legislature  of  1875-76,  xii-93; 
land  and  railway  monopoly  cause  con- 
vention for  to  be  called,  xii-93;  election 
in  favor  of  calling  convention,  xii-9:^; 
modifies  rigors  of  libel  law,  xii-94;  adop- 
tion of,  xii-94;  thoroughly  discussed, 
xii-94;  interests  seek  to  prevent  discus- 
sion by  hiring  all  halls,  xii-95;  antici- 
pated modern  reforms,  xii-95;  vote  for 
and  against,  xii-95;  popular  indifference 
causes  sacrifice  of  reforms  of,  xii-95;  did 
not  drive  out  capital,  xii-95;  ends  land 
monopoly,  xv-119;  anticipated  recent  re- 
form movements,  xvi-124. 

CO-OPERATION,  newspapers  fruit  of, 
xix-153. 

CORA,  hanged  by  the  Vigilantes,  iv-30. 

CORRUPTION,  combined  interests  an- 
tagonize  Constitution   of   1879,   xii-92. 

CORTISSOZ,  Royal,  his  criticism  of 
the   P.  P.   I.   E.,  xxiii-192. 

CORYN,  Sydney,  writes  History  of 
Civil  War  for  Chronicle,  xv-121. 

COSGRAVE,  James  O'Hara,  publisher 
of  Wave,  xix-160. 

COURIER,   career  of.  v-37. 

COURTS,  corrupted  and  justice  para- 
lyzed, iv-25;  Bulletin  menaces  Court  and 
jury,   iv-28. 

CRAFT,  Miss  Mabel,  Sunday  editor  of 
Chronicle,    xix-159. 

CRIME,  briefly  reported,  ii-12;  rampant 
between  1849-51,  ii-12;  not  promoted  by 
extended  accounts  of,  ii-12,  13;  criminal 
element  not  in  the  majority  in  1S5G, 
iv-25;  killing  of  Richardsoai  by  Cora, 
iv-28;  criminal  element  sides  with  James 
P.  Casey,  iv-29;  the  true  cause  of  in- 
solence of  law-defying  class,  iv-31;  crim- 
inal element  ceases  to  be  assertive,  v-34. 

CROTHERS,  R.  A.,  conducts  Bulletin, 
xx-162. 

CUBA,  annexation  of  advocated,  lii-20. 

CURRENT  OPINION,  of  New  York, 
founded  by  Fred  Somers,  xiii-105. 

— D— 

DAGGETT,  Rolin  M.,  editorial  writer 
of   The   Chronicle,   xix-159. 

DAILY  MAIL,  writers  and  contribu- 
tors, xiii-106;  its  career  and  demise, 
xiii-106. 

DAM,  Harry  J.,  Chronicle  reporter, 
makes  London  success,  xvi-133. 

DAVIS,  Sam,  reporter  and  publisher, 
xiii-105. 

DEL  MAR,  Alexander,  authority  on 
subject  of  money,  xvi-133;  regular  con- 
tributor   to    Chronicle,    xvi-133. 

DEMOCRATIC  PRESS,  predecessor  of 
San   Francisco   Examiner,   vii-63. 

DEMOKRAT,  German,  career  of,  v-37; 
one  of  the  three  survivors  from  the  50.s, 
xxii-180. 

DEXSMORE,  G.  B.,  editorial  writer 
and  dramatic  critic,  xiii-105. 

DEPRESSION  of  business  in  1857, 
v-34;  that  following  election  of  Grover 
Cleveland,  xvii-137;  workingmen  claim  to 
have  removed   it,   xx-163. 

DEVELOPMENT,  Chronicle  annuals  a 
record  of  State's  progress,  xv-121. 

DEWEY,  W.  S.,  reporter  and  special 
writer,   xiii-105. 


348 


Index 


De  YOUNG  (brothers  Charles  and 
M.  H.).  organize  party  favoring  Consti- 
tution of  1J>79,  xii-92;  exhibit  their  confi- 
dence in  future  of  San  Francisco,  xiv-lOS. 

De  YOUNG,,  Charles,  with  his  brother, 
M.  H.,  starts  the  San  Francisco  Chronicle, 
\iii-64;  insists  on  proper  nominations, 
xi-88;  his  consideration  for  employes, 
xiii-107;  brings  first  electric  lamps  from 
Paris  in  1878,  xiv-109;  his  great  faith  In 
future  of  electric  lighting,  xiv-lOS;  death 
of  in  1880,  xv-117. 

De  YOUNG,  Charles  (son  of  M.  H.), 
receives  his  baptism  of  fire,  xxi-174; 
tal<es  charge  of  circulation  after  fire, 
xxi-174;  made  business  manager  of 
Chronicle,  xxi-176;  made  publislier  of  The 
Chronicle,  xxi-176;  superintends  handling 
of  Reno  prize  fight  report,  xxi-177;  his 
lively  interest  in  public  affairs,  xxi-178; 
Induces  Tetrazzini  to  sing  in  open  air  in 
San  Francisco,  xxi-17S;  director  of  P. -P. 
I.  E.,  xxi-178;  brightens  lives  of  children 
in  hospitals,  xxii-18(),  death  of,  Septem- 
ber  17,   1913,  xxi-179. 

De  YOUNG,  M.  H.,  and  his  brother, 
Charles,  start  Dramatic  Chronicle,  viii- 
64;  manages  business  of  Chronicle,  viii- 
65;  assumes  full  control  of  Chronicle, 
xv-117;  prominent  in  councils  of  Repub- 
lican party,  xvi-127;  forms  Chronicle 
Press  Association,  xvi-128;  erects  first 
skyscraper  in  San  Francisco,  xvii-135; 
appointed  National  Commissioner-at- 
Large  to  Columbian  Exposition,  xvii-137; 
elected  vice-president  of  National  Com- 
mission^ Columbian  Exposition,  xvii-137; 
suggests  holding  Midwinter  Exposition 
in  San  Francisco,  xvii-137;  subscribes 
$5,000  to  Midwinter  Exposition  project, 
xvii-138;  chosen  president  and  director- 
general  of  Midwinter  Exposition,  xvii- 
139;  makes  speech  telling  hearers  that 
Midwinter  Exposition  will  save  them 
fronr.  depression,  xvii-140;  makes  protec- 
tion advocacy  leading  policy  of  Chronicle, 
xviii-152;  political  activities,  xx-165; 
builds  seventeen-story  annex  to  Chron- 
icle. xxi-171;  his  speedy  determination 
to  restore  Chronicle  building,  xxi-175; 
purchases  San  Francisco  Call,  xxii-180; 
celebrates  fiftieth  anniversary  continu- 
ous ownership  of  Chronicle,  xxii-180;  at- 
taches of  paper  present  him  with  album 
of  employes,  xxii-184;  his  work  in  build- 
ing up  Memorial  Museum  in  Golden  Gate 
Park,  xxii-lS5:  director  of  P.-P.  I.  E., 
xxi-17S;  subscribes  $25,000  to  P.-P.  T.  E., 
xxi-178;  congratulations  tendered  him  on 
comnleting  his  fiftieth  year  of  ownership 
of  Chronicle,  xxiii-190. 

DIAMOND  MINE  SWINDLE,  account 
of  in   Chronicle,  xiv-112. 

DIME  NOVELS,  Sunday  magazines 
drive  out  low-grade  stories,  xiii-99. 

DOLLAR  LIMIT,  the  slogan  of  Chris 
Eucklev,  xviii-147;  slogan  lielps  Chris 
Buckley,  xx-163. 

DOLORES,  Mission,  named  by  Juan 
Bautista  de  Anza,   1-1. 

DOUGHFACES.  anti-slavery  Demo- 
crats eve   of  Civil  "War,  vi-45. 

DRAMA,  criticism  of  a  leading  feature 
in  fifti«;s,  v-41:  love  of  San  Franciscans 
for,  viii-64;  Tremenhere  Johns,  first 
dramatic  critic  of  Chronicle,  viii-fi7; 
theater   district   in    the   eighties,   xiv-110. 

DRAMATIC  CHRONICLE,  first  name 
of  San  Francisco  Chronicle,  viii-64;  name 


clianged  to  Daily  Morning  Chronicle,  ix- 
71. 

DRED  SCOTT  DECISION,  editors  di- 
vided  concerning,    vi-43. 

DUELLO,  personal  encounters  com- 
mon, ii-14;  succinct  reports  cf  "affairs  of 
honor,"  ii-15;  senior  editor  of  Alta  killed, 
ii-15;  David  C.  Broderick  killed  by  Terry, 
vi-44. 

_E— 

EARTHQUAKES,  report  of  that  of 
1868  by  Chronicle,  ix-72;  Chronicle's  re- 
port of  the  Inyo  and  picture  of,  xvi-111; 
erection  of  Chronicle's  steel  building  im- 
part's  confidence,  xvii-136. 

EARTHQUAKE,  of  1906,  xxi-171;  ad- 
mirable worli  of  Committee  of  Ffty,  xxi- 
171;  newspapers  strive  to  get  out  extras, 
xxi-172;  Clironicle,  Examiner  and  Call 
issue  a  joint  paper,  xxi-173;  weakens  in- 
terest in  outside  news,  xxi-174;  work  per- 
formed by  newspapers  in  reorganizing 
community,  xxi-175;  fire  destroys  all 
newspaper  plants,  xxi-175;  cause  of  de- 
struction of  Chronicle  building,  xxi-175; 
followed  by  speedy  rehabilitation  of  city, 
xxi-175;  three  months  after  Chronicle 
prints  fourteen  pages  daily,  xxi-176. 

EDITORS,  vigorous  writers  held  in 
great  esteem,  ii-14;  little  concerned  about 
circulation,  v-35;  serious  minded  in  the 
fifties,  v-39;  fire  eaters,  but  harmless, 
v-40;  all  around  workers,  xiii-104;  Samuel 
Seabough's  vigorous  style,  xii-106; 
marked  accession  of  capable  writers  in 
eighties,  xvi-131;  a  trio  of  bright  writers, 
xvi-134. 

EDITORIAL,  deemed  more  important 
than  news,  ii-14;  disappearance  of  pre- 
dicted, xviii-148. 

EDUCATION,  college  graduates  nu-. 
merous,  v-40:  history  of  published  by 
Chronicle,,   xvi-127. 

ELECTRICITY,  its  use  for  power  pur- 
poses not  anticipated  in  1878,  xiv-110. 

ELECTRIC  LIGHT,  Chronicle  in- 
stalls first  lamps  in  America,  xiv-lOit; 
Chronicle's  new  Kearny  street  build- 
ing   illuminated   with,   xiv-110. 

ELECTIONS,  ballot  box  stuffing  in 
1856,  iv-25;  good  men  and  low  taxes  de- 
manded after  '56,  vi-42;  numerous  for 
obtaining  a  charter,  xx-162:  celebration 
of  triumph  of  W.  P.  C,  xx-163, 

ELIOT,  Joseph  R.,  business  manager  of 
Chronicle,  xxi-176. 

EXAMINER,  founded  1S65.  viii-63: 
started  by  trained  journalists,  viii-63; 
preached  orthodox  Democratic  doctrine 
in  early  days,  xiii-105;  passes  into  pos- 
session of  (jeorge  Hearst,  xvi-126;  osten- 
tatious neglect  of  editorial  feature,  xvii- 
148;  ceases  to  be  ortliodox  Democratic, 
xviii-149:  its  early  advocacy  of  free 
trade,  xviii-149;  Ambrose  Bierce,  Charles 
P.  Holder,  Asliton  Stephens  members  of 
staff,  xix-lfiO;  assists  Chronicle  in  get- 
ting out  paper,  xx-164;  maintains  a 
shack  corner  Market  and  Third  streets 
after  fire,  xxi-176. 

EXCLUSION,  Chinese  laborers  ex- 
cluded by  Congress,  xv-120. 

EXPOSITIONS,  see  Midwinter,  Colum- 
bian and  Panama-Pacific;  opening  of  the 
Panama-Pacific    International,    xxiii-192. 

EVANS,  Taliesin,  editorial  writer  for 
Chronicle,  xix-159. 


Index 


349 


EVENING  POST,  takes  up  cudgels  for 
sailors,   x-78. 

EVENING  REPORT,  career  and  death 
of,  xviii-145;  killed  by  reduction  to  1 
cent,  xviii-145.  , 


— F— 

PAIR,  James  G.,  one  of  big  bonanza 
owners,  x-79;  buys  Alta,  and  it  dies  on 
his  hands,  xviii-145. 

FEDERAL,  PATRONAGE,  part  played 
by  it  in  Vigilante  uprising,  iv-24. 

FERNALD,  Chester  Bailey,  his  work 
on  The  Chronicle,  xix-159. 

FILIBUSTERING,  encouraged  by  San 
Francisco  press,  iii-19;  press  generally 
favors  movements,  iii-20;  Walker's 
schemes  supported,  iii-21;  exploits  of 
French  adventurers,   iii-22. 

FILLMORE  street,  newspaper  offices 
maintained  on  for  several  months, 
xxi-176. 

FIRE,  concise  description  of  an  early 
conflagration,  ii-12;  Chronicle's  tower 
destroyed  by,  xx-164;  the  great  fire  of 
1906,    xxi-171. 

FIREMEN'S  JOURNAL,  career  of, 
v-37. 

FITCH,  George  H.,  joins  The  Chronicle 
In  1880,  xvi-132;  author  of  numerous 
books,  xvi-132;  book  reviewer  of  Chron- 
icle for  thirty-flve  years,  xvi-132;  gets 
out  Chronicle  in  Herald  office,  Oakland, 
xxi-174. 

FITCH,  George  K.,  part  owner  of  Call, 
ix-73;   shapes  policies   of  Bulletin,   ix-73. 

FLOOD,  James  C,  one  of  big  bonanza 
owners,    x-79. 

FLTNN,  Thomas  E..  first  sporting 
editor  of  Chronicle,  xiii-103. 

FRANCE,  French  Consul  implicated 
In  filibustering  schemes,   iii-22. 

FRANCO-PRUSSIAN  WAR,  fully  re- 
ported in  San  Francisco  newspapers, 
xiv-114. 

FREAKING,  displaces  methodical  ar- 
rangement of  reading  matter,  xvi-131; 
departure  from  ordinary  usage  in  type- 
setting and  display,  xix-156. 

FREE  TRADE,  Samuel  S.  Moffat, 
writes  defense  of  for  Examiner,  xviii- 
149. 

FREMONT,  first  exploring  party,  i-2; 
names  entrance  to  Bay  of  San  Francisco 
Chrysophylae,  i-2;  Pathfinder  founded  to 
advocate  his  election,  v-37. 

FOREIGN  CORRESPONDENCE,  a  fea- 
ture of  early  Sunday  magazine,  xix-155. 

FOURGEAD,  Dr.  Victor  J.,  author  of 
first  boost  prospectus,  i-6. 

FOWLER,  W.  H.  B.,  made  business 
manager  of  Chronicle,  xxi-176. 

FUGITIVE  SLAVE  ACT,  attitude 
toward,   iii-20. 


— G— 

GAMBLING,  effects  of  passion  for, 
x-SO;  in  mining  stocks,  ix-77;  collapse  of 
mining  stock,   xv-116. 

GARRETT,  Thomas,  city  editor  of 
Chronicle,    xix-160. 

GASSAWAY,  Frank,  reporter  and 
author,    xiii-105. 


GEARY,  John  W.,  first  Mayor  of  San 
Francisco's    message,    ii-12. 

GEORGE,  Henry,  his  San  Francisco 
career,  x-78;  does  editorial  work  for 
Chronicle,  x-79;  made  good  wages  as  a 
printer,  xiii-101;  favors  Chinese  immi- 
gration, xiii-102;  never  destitute  in  San 
Francisco,  xiii-102;  in  enjoyment  of 
political  sinecure  when  he.  wrote 
"Progress  and  Poverty,"  xiii-102;  opposed 
to  Constitution  of  1879,  xiii-102;  his 
theory  and  predictions  falsified  by  events. 
xv-119. 

GLASSFORD,  Colonel  W.  A.,  signal 
service  officer,  assists  Chronicle  in  pro- 
moting a  warning  service,  xvi-127. 

GLOBE,   career  of,    v-37. 

GOAT  ISLAND,  effort  to  secure  for 
railway    terminal,    ix-75. 

GOLD,  earliest  discovery  in  Los  An- 
geles county,  i-2;  early  discovery  barely 
mentioned  in  first  boost  paper,  i-6;  dis- 
covery of  at  Sutter's  Mill,  i-2;  California 
experienced  no  difficulty  maintaining  it 
as  a  circulating  medium,  vii-62-  dis- 
covered  in   the  Klondike,   xviii-151. 

GOLDEN  ERA,   career  of,  v-37. 

GOLDEN  GATE,  first  named  Chrys- 
ophylae by  Fremont,   i-2. 

GOLDEN  GATE  PARK,  opposition  to 
its  use  for  Midwinter  Exposition  over- 
come, xvii-140;  a  barren  waste  converted 
into  a  garden,  xvii-140;  profits  from  Mid- 
winter Exposition,  xvii-143;  money  voted 
for  extension  of  Panhandle  of,  xx-163. 

GOLDEN  JUBILEE  EDITION  of  San 
Francisco  Chronicle,  January  16,  1915, 
xxiii-190;  contains  twelve  pages  of  ex- 
position matter,  xxiii-193. 

GOODMAN,  Joseph,  author,  special 
writer  and  reporter,  xiii-105. 

GRANT  RECEPTION,  San  Francisco's 
welcome    to   ex-President,    xv-118. 

GRAND  ARMY  OF  REPUBLIC,  his- 
tory of  organization  in  Chronicle,  xv-121. 

GREATHOUSE,  Clarence,  editor  of 
Examiner,  xvi-126;  appointed  Consul- 
General   to  Korea,  xvi-126. 

GREELY,  General,  extols  value  of 
Chronicle's  meteorological  experiment. 
xvi-128. 

GREENBACKS,  dealt  in  on  the  ex- 
changes, vii-61. 


— H— 

HALFTONES,  made  for  newspapers, 
xvi-131;  use  of  in  Sunday  magazines, 
xix-155. 

HAMILTON,  Edward,  his  work  on  the 
Examiner,   xix-159. 

HANSBROUGH,  Henry  C,  news  editor 
of  Chronicle,  xvi-132;  elected  United 
States  Senator,  xvi-132. 

HART,  Will  N.,  reporter  and  special 
writer,  xiii-105. 

HARTE,  Bret,  an  early  contributor  of 
The  Chronicle,  viii-66;  possible  resurrec- 
tion of  some  uncopyrighted  material, 
viii-66;  contributions  of  not  copyrighted, 
ix-71;  writes  "Through  the  Santa  Clara 
Wheat"  for   The  Chronicle,  xvii-137. 

HAWAII,  its  relations  with  San  Fran- 
cisco, xviii-150;  special  editions  devoted 
to  by  Chronicle,  xviii-151;  story  of  an- 
nexation   in   Chronicle,    xviii-151. 

HAWES,  Horace,  framer  of  Consolida- 
tion act,  v-39.  . 


350 


Index 


f 


HEARST,  George,  Examiner  acquired 
to  forward  his  political  aspirations,  xvi- 
126;  becomes  United  States  Senator, 
xvi-126. 

HEARST,  William  R.,  intimates  that 
editorial  is  to  become  a  negligible  factor, 
xviii-148. 

HENDERSON,  A.  B.,  city  editor 
Chronicle  under  Charles  de  Young, 
xiii-104;  managing  editor  of  Examiner, 
xix-160. 

HERALD  (San  Francisco),  champions 
Law  and  Order  party,  iv-30;  leading 
newspaper  up  to  time  of  Vigilante  up- 
rising, iv-30;  career  of,  v-27. 

HERALD  (Oakland),  affords  Chronicle 
facilities  after  fire,  xxi-174. 

HERON,  Matilda,  an  actress  who  ob- 
jected to  being  called  fat,  viii-6S. 

HINCKLEY,  William  Sturgis,  first 
Alcalde  of  Yerba  Buena,  1-3. 

HISTORY,  special  numbers  of  Chron- 
icle devoted  to,  xv-121;  Chronicle  prints 
details  of  its  progress  during  twenty-five 
years  of  its  existence,  xvii-136;  special 
edition  of  Chronicle  on  development  of 
California  under  Spanish  and  American 
rule,  xviii-149. 

HOLDER,  Charles  F.,  member  of  Ex- 
aminer  staff,   xix-160. 

HORTICULTURE,  editors  slow  to  per- 
ceive its  possibilities,  vi-51;  vastly  bene- 
fited by  institution  of  Chronicle's  warn- 
ing service,  xvi-127. 

HOSPITALITY,  missions  extend  to  all 
travelers,   i-2. 

HULL,  Chester,  reporter  and  special 
writer,    xiii-105. 

HUME,  Hugh,  publisher  of  the  Wave, 
xix-160. 

HUNTER'S  POINT  DOCK,  constructed 
by  Dock  and  Wharf  Company,  vi-50. 

— I— 

ILLUSTRATIONS,  picture  of  Booth 
assassinating  Lincoln  published  by 
Chronicle,  viii-69;  Inyo  earthquake  pic- 
tured in  1872,  xiv-112;  attempt  to  illus- 
trate author's  carnival,  xv-llS;  one  and 
a  half  artists  in  1879,  xv-118;  growing 
use  of  pictures,  xv-121;  improvement  in 
character  of,  xvi-130;  use  of  dropped  for 
a  period,  xvi-130;  use  of  becomes  com- 
mon, xvi-130;  use  of  chalk  process, 
xvi-130;  Mark  Twain's  chalk  process  pat- 
ent, xvi-130;  zinc  etchings,  xvi-131;  in- 
troduction of  color  printing,  xix-155;  pic- 
tures add  to  popularity  of  Sunday  maga- 
zines, xix-155;  improvement  in  use  of 
colors,  xix-155;  growth  of  the  use  of 
color  in,  xx-168;  cartoons,  xx-168;  half- 
tones of  Reno  prize  fight  printed  morn- 
ing after  in  Chronicle,  xxi-177. 

IMMIGRATION,  discouraged  by  Span- 
iards and  Mexicans,  i-5. 

IMPROVEMENTS,  hostility  of  Bul- 
letin and  Call  to  expenditures  for,  xviii- 
148;  adoption  of  charter  of  1898  followed 
by  agitation  for,  xx-163;  millions  voted 
for  Panhandle  roadway  to  Park,  xx-163; 
city  beautiful  idea,  xx-166;  David  A. 
Burnham's  plan  for  city,  xx-166. 

INCIVICISM,  San  Franciscans  indif- 
ferent to  civic  duty,  iii-17;  shirking  of 
duty  by  pioneers,  iv-25;  true  cause  of  de- 
fiance of  law,  iv-31;  attention  to  political 
duties  increases,  vi-42;  neglect  of  people 


nullifies  reforms  of  Constitution  of  1879, 
xii-95;  failure  of  people  to  insist  on  car- 
rying out  reforms  of  Constitution  of  1879, 
xvi-124;  small  votes  cast  at  charter  elec- 
tions, xx-162;  people  fail  to  heed  warn- 
ings of  newspapers,  xxi-170. 

INDEX  CARD  SYSTEM,  installed  in 
Chronicle  office  in   1879,  xiv-110. 

INDIANS,  padres  devoted  to  saving 
their  souls,  i-2;  taught  music  by  the  mis- 
sionaries, i-2;  apprehenhions  concerning 
wild,  i-5;  Modoc  war,  last  uprising  in 
California,  xiv-112. 

IRRIGATION,  special  editions  of 
Chronicle   devoted    to,    xviii-149. 

IRWIN,  Wallace,  reports  for  Chron- 
icle, xix-159. 

IRWIN,  Will,  Sunday  editor  of  Chron- 
icle, xix-159. 


JAPAN,  manufacturing  industries  of, 
book  on  by  John  P.  Young,  published  in 
Chronicle,  xviii-152. 

JAPANESE  EDITION  published  by 
Chronicle,   xxii-lS8. 

JASON,  collier,  carries  to  Europe  toys 
and  clothing  collected  by  Chronicle, 
xxii-lS6. 

JOHNS,  Tremenhere,  first  dramatic 
critic  of  Chronicle,   viii-67. 

JOHNSON,  George  Penn,  one  of 
founders   of   Examiner,   viii-63. 

JOHNSON,  Grove  L.,  author  of  retrac- 
tion  bill,   xii-93. 

JONES,  E.  P.,  editor  California  Star, 
i-6. 

JOURNALISM,  resorted  to  by  college 
bred  men,  v-40;  Chronicle  examples  of 
kind  that   "does   things,"  xiv-111. 

JOURNALISM  IN  CALIFORNIA,  a 
twenty-two-page  article  on  in  Chronicle's 
Golden  Jubilee  edition,  xviii-191. 

JOURNAL  OF  COMMERCE,  career  of, 
v-37;  one  of  three  survivors  from  pioneer 
days,  xxii-180. 

JUNTA,  of  People's  party  make  secret 
nominations,   vi-42. 


— K— 

KEARNEY,  Denis,  part  in  sand-lot_ 
troubles,  xii-93. 

KING,  James  of  William,  wages  a 
patronage  fight,  iv-24;  assaults  upon 
Broderick,  iv-26;  his  salutatory  in  the 
Bulletin,  iv-26;  shot  by  Casey,  iv-29;  dies 
from   his   wounds,    iv-30. 

KLONDIKE,  gold  discovered  in  1897, 
xviii-151. 

KNIGHTS  TEMPLARS,  specially  pre- 
pared  history  of  in  Chronicle,  xv-121. 


— L— 

LABOR,  Chinese  exclusion  law  passed, 
xv-120. 

LA  CHRONICA,  Spanish,  career  of, 
v-37. 

LAGOON,  separating  h'orth  Beach  and 
district  south  of  San  Francisco,  i-3. 

LA  GRANGE,  Oscar  H.,  Superintend- 
ent of  Mint,  xi-85. 


Index 


351 


LAND,  frauds  not  severely  criticised 
by  press,  3-17;  advocacy  of  private 
owner.sliip  general,  iii-lS;  prices  of  town 
lots,  iii-lhi;  squatter  troubles,  iii-lS;  lit- 
tle or  no  demand  for  town  lots,  iii-lS; 
fraudulent  Limantour  grant  claim,  iii-18; 
lower  morale  of  community,  iii-19;  Mexi- 
can and  Spanish  grants  regarded  as  an 
obstacle  to  development,  vi-51;  monopoly 
of  dreaded,  x-7S;  big  grants  of  to  rail- 
ways not  antagonized  at  first,  x-79;  an- 
tagonism to  monopoly  of,  xii-93;  big 
holdings  broken  up,  xv-119;  of  city  sold 
to  procure  money  to  build  City  Hall, 
xviii-147. 

LANE,  Franklin  K.,  reporter  and  New 
York  correspondent  of  Clironicle,  xvi-133; 
appointed  Secretary  of  Interior,  xvi-133; 
eulogizes  the  Panama-Pacific  Interna- 
tional Exposition,  xxiii-192. 

LARKIN,  Thomas  O.,  with  M.  G- 
Vallejo,  starts  Benicia,  i-7. 

LATHROP,  Barbour,  reporter  on  Call, 
xiii-104. 

LAWRENCE.  Andrew,  reporter  for 
Chronicle,  xix-159. 

LE  CALIFORNIAN,  French,  career  of, 
v-37. 

LEESE,  Jacob  Primer,  starts  first  store 
in  Yerba  Buena,  i-3. 

LEGISLATURE,  corrupted  by  rail- 
way managers,  ix-76;  Stanford  person- 
ally supervises  lobby,  xii-93. 

LETTER  LISTS,  published  by  Chron- 
icle, xiv-113. 

LIBEL,  attempts  to  indict  Chronicle 
in  every  county  in  California,  xi-S5;  law 
amended  by  Legislature,  1877-78,  xii-94; 
Chronicle  sued  for  exposing  primary 
frauds,  xx-164. 

LIBRARIES,  Chronicle's  contemporary 
library,  xiv-110;  modern  newspaper  the 
people's,  xix-154;  Chronicle's  valuable 
reference  library  destroyed,  xxi-175. 

LIMANTOUR,  Jose  J.,  claims  nearly 
whole  of  San  Francisco,  iii-18;  his  claim 
adjudged  fraudulent,   iii-19. 

LINCOLN,  carries  State  of  California 
in  1860,  vii-59;  news  of  his  assassination 
first  published  by  Dramatic  Chronicle, 
viii-68. 

LINOTYPE,  invention  of  Otto  Mer- 
genthaler,  xix-155;  becomes  accepted 
typesetting  machine,  xix-1.56;  its  econ- 
omies offset   by    innovations,  xix-156. 

LITERATURE,     author's     productions 
appear    in   newspapers   before   book   pub- 
lication, xix-154;  part  played  by  the  Sun 
day     magazine     in     promoting,     xix-154 
modern  newspapers  present  best,  xix-154 
contributions  came  slowly  when    Sunday 
magazine  first  started,  xix-155;  disregard 
of    shorthand     develops     facile     writing, 
xix-15S;  army  of  writers  recruited  from 
newspaper   press,    xix-158. 

LOAN  SHARKS,  Chronicle  strikes  a 
blow  at  their  business,  xxii-lS7. 

LOPEZ.  Francisco,  discovers  gold  in 
Los  Angeles,  in  1841,  i-2. 

LOS  ANGELES,  connected  by  wdre 
with  San  Francisco,  ii-11;  the  Chronicle 
its  friend  when  it  needed  one,  xviii-150. 

LOUGHEAD,  Florence  Apponyi,  first 
woman   reporter,   xv-119. 

LUMBERING  whipsaw  sole  depend- 
ence until  18'<3.  1-4;  Stephen  Smith  estab- 
lishes  first   sawmill,   i-4. 


LYNCH,  Jeremiah,  on  earlv  news 
transmission,  vi-42;  writes  pamphlet- 
against  Buckley,  xviii-14S. 

LYNCH  LAW,  prevalent  in  pioneer 
period,  ii-12;  Casey  and  Cora  hanged  by 
Vigilantes,  iv-30. 

LYON,  George  E.,  his  portrait  work  in 
Chronicle,  xx-169. 


— M— 

MACKAYE,  Robert,  reporter  for 
Chronicle,    xix-159. 

MACKEY,  John  W.,  one  of  big  bonanza 
owners,  x-79. 

MAGUIRE,  Thomas,  sues  the  Chron- 
icle,  viii-68. 

MAKE  UP.  methodical  arrangement  of 
reading  matter,  xvi-131. 

MANIFEST  DESTINY,  Californians 
believers  in,  iii-21. 

MANUFACTURING,  only  crudest 
articles  produced  by  neophytes,  i-4;  pro- 
moted by  W.  C.  Ralston,  x-Sl. 

MARITIME,  natives  no  inclination  for 
the  sea,  i-4. 

MARIOTT,  Frederick,  founder  of 
News  Letter,  xiii-105. 

MARCONI,  general  use  of  wireless  by 
newspapers,   xxii-181. 

MARK  TWAIN,  writes  for  The 
Chronicle,  viii-66j  boosted  by  The  Chron- 
icle, ix-71;  patents  cliallv  process  of  il- 
lustrating,  xvi-130. 

MARSHALL,  discovers  gold  at  Sutter's 
Mill,   i-2. 

MARKET  STREET,  its  desolate  con- 
dition after   the  fire,  xxi-175. 

McCarthy,  D.  O.,  editor  of  American 
Flag,    vii-60. 

McCLURE,  S.  S.,  originator  of  the 
newspaper  syndicate,  xix-154. 

McCRELLISH  &  CO.,  Fred,  buys  Alta 
California  in  1858,  xviii-145. 

McDonald,  Calvln  B.,  startles  readers 
by  using  "caps"  in  an  editorial,  vii-53; 
denounces  Copperheads,  vii-60. 

McDonald,  Mark,  secures  Daily  Mail 
to  make  his  Senatorial  fight,  viii-106. 

McDowell,  Harry,  reporter  for  Ex- 
aminer, xix-159. 

McEWEN,  Arthur,  special  writer  and 
author,    xiii-105. 

MEIGGS,  Harry,  his  meteoric  career, 
iv-31;  flees  from  San  Francisco  owing 
,$800,000,  iv-31;  makes  fortune  in  Peru 
and  pays  his  creditors,  iv-31;  failure  of 
attempts  to  lift  indictments  against  him, 
iv-32. 

MEMORIAL  MUSEUM,  a  legacy  from 
the  Midwinter  Exposition,  xvii-143. 

MERGER,  California's  first  newspaper 
combination,  ii-15-. 

MERGENTHALER.  Otto,  invents  lino- 
type,  xix-155. 

METEOROLOGY,  Chronicle  takes  a 
lively  interest  in.  xvi-127;  present  land 
warnings  due  to  Chronicle's  efforts,  xvi- 
128;  General  Greely  extols  value  of 
Chronicle's   experiments,   xvi-128. 

MEXICO,  revolts  from  Spain,  i-1:  the 
victim  of  filibustering  attempts,  iii-21  j 
plots  against  by  French  adventurers, 
iii-22. 

MIDWINTER  EXPOSITION,  sug- 
gestion made  by  M.  H.  de  Young  to  hold 


dol' 


Index 


one  in  San  Francisco,  xvii-137;  M.  II 
de  Young  suggests  holding  it  in  Golden 
Gate  Parl^;,  xvii-137;  financed  wholly  by 
private  subscriptions,  xvii-137;  Citizens' 
Committee  of  Fifty  chooses  M.  H.  de 
Young  as  director-general,  xvii-139;  ad- 
visory board  of,  xvii-139;  amount  sub- 
scribed by  citizens,  xvii-139;  occupies  200 
acres,  Golden  Gate  I'ark,  xvii-140;  cere- 
mony of  ground  breaking,  xvii-140; 
opened  on  January  1,  1894,  xvii-140;  150 
buildings  erected  in  four  months,  xvii- 
140;  description  of  buildings,  xvii-141; 
use  of  color  causes  the  fair  buildings  to 
be  called  "Opal  City,"  xvii-141;  cost  of 
buildings,  xvii-141;  ceremonial  opening, 
January  29,  1894,  xvii-142;  figures  of  at- 
tendance, xvii-142;  a  financial  success, 
xvn-143;  special  Chronicle  edition  de- 
voted describing  State's  progress,  xviii- 
150;  growth  of  Memorial  Museum,  xvii- 
185. 

MILLARD,  Frank  Bailev,  commences 
newspaper  career  on  Chronicle,  xix-159. 

MILLER,  Joaquin,  contributes  to 
Chronicle,  ix-72;  articles  consigned  to 
waste  basket  because  Illegibly  written. 
X1X-15S.  ' 

MINING,  agriculture  beginning  to 
share  interest  with  it,  vi-52;  Comstock 
discoveries  give  impetus  to  business, 
ax-7/;  stock  exchanges  formed,  ix-77;  the 
Big  Bonanza  discovery,  x-79;  the  owners 
of  the  Big  Bonanza  mine,  x-79-  Big 
Bonanza  discovery  calls  new  papers  into 
existence,  x-80;  stock  gambling  general, 
x-80;  great  fluctuations  in  stock  quota- 
tions, x-Sl;  struggle  for  control  of  mine 
causes  failure  of  Bank  of  California, 
x-81;  stock  assessments  eat  up  people's 
substance,  x-83;  George  M.  Pinney  as  a 
mining  operator  and  stock  broker,  xi-S5- 
last  big  stock  deal,  xv-116:  legislation 
against  wash  sales  of  stocks,  xv-117- 
legitimate  industry  and  stock  gambling- 
confused.  xv-117;  oil  industry  slighted  in 
early  days,  xv-117;  subsidence  of  stock 
excitement  causes  death  of  two'  papers 
xviii-145. 

MISSIONARIES,  devoted  to  saving 
souls  of  Indians,  i-2;  ignorant  of  outside 
world,  1-2;  history  of  California  missions 
written   for  Chronicle,  xv-121 

MISSIONS,  located  at  suitable  inter- 
vals, i-2;  Dolores  named  by  De  Anza 
1-1;  links  in  chain  of  intelligence,  i-2-' 
few  books  possessed  by  them,  1-4- 
Captain  Richardson  gathers  up  their 
products,    i-4. 

MISSOURIANS,  inducements  offered 
them    to   settle,    i-7. 

MOB     RULE,     Vigilance     Committee's 
action  denounced  as,  iv-24 
.    MODOC    WAR,    San    Francisco    Chron- 
icle s  account  of,  xiv-112. 

MOFFATT,  Samuel  S.,  writes  book  on 
free  trade  for  Examiner,  xyiii-149. 

MOPRAT,  de.  hears  Indians  sing  mass 
to  tune  of  Marseillaise,"  i-2. 

MONEY,  Californian  aversion  for 
paper  money,  vii-fil;  greenbacks  refused 
circulation,  vii-fil  ;  effects  of  adoption  of 
-specific  contract  act,  vii-fil;  merchants 
profit  by  adherence  to  gold  money,  vii- 
61;  San  Francisco  aversion  for  pennies. 
xviii-145. 

MONTEREY,  hears  of  gold  discovery. 
yi-42;  first  paper  in  California  published 
there,    i-5. 

MONOPOLY,  newspapers  antagonize 
X>ock  and  Wharf  Company's  offer  to  im- 


prove water  front,  vi-50;  of  land  dreaded 
x-(8;  railway  land  grants  not  antag- 
onized at  first,  x-79;  land  and  railway 
cause  of  calling  Constitutional  conven- 
tion, xii-93;  fears  of  land  absorption 
vanish,  xv-119;  a  subject  for  Eastern 
newspaper  jokesmith,  xvi-124-  none  in 
newsgathering,  xviii-144. 

MORALS,  public,  land  frauds  under- 
mine,   iii-19. 

MORGUE,  adopted  by  Chronicle  in 
early   seventies,   xiv-110. 

MORMONS,  issue  California  Star  in 
Yerba  Buena,   i-4. 

MORMON  COLONY,  brings  printing 
press,  i-4. 

MOSS,  William  S.,  one  of  founders  of 
Examiner,  viii-63. 

MUNICIPAL,  corruption  boldly  at- 
tacked, ii-14;  assaults  upon  corruption 
ineffective  because  of  the  overshadowing 
slavery  question,  iii-23;  gross  extrava- 
gance and  corruption  prior  to  1856,  iv-25; 
expenditures  greatly  reduced  by  People's 
party,  iv-25;  offices  sold  to  highest  bidder, 
iv-27;  lax  methods  of  accounting,  iv-31; 
no  civic  improvements  made  for  many 
years,  v-33;  ingrained  fear  of  corruption, 
v-34;  retrenchment  after  1856,  v-34;  Con- 
solidation act  a  barrier  to  extravagance, 
v-39;  People's  party  junta  names  tickets, 
vi-42;  San  Francisco  bonds  itself  to  aid 
Southern  Pacific,  ix-75;  pay-as-you-go 
policy  costly,  xv,  xviii-146;  acquisition 
of  Spring  Valley  water  works  opposed, 
xviii-147;  expenditures  without  improve- 
ments, xviii-148;  difficulty  of  obtaining 
a  charter  for  San  Francisco,  xx-161; 
Consolidation  act  replaced  by  a  charter 
in  1898,  xx-162;  heavy  expenditures  but 
no  improvements,  xx-163;  extravagance 
and  turpitude,  xx-163;  Schmitz  elected  a 
third    time,   xx-163. 

MUSEUM,  Midwinter  Memorial,  con- 
tains first  California  press,  ii-S;  con- 
tains copies  of  earliest  papers.  i'-S; 
growth  of  Midwinter  memorial  in  Golden 
Gate    Park,    xxii-185. 

MULFORD,  Prentice,  contributor  of 
special  articles,  ix-71;  his  descriptions 
of  miners  and  mining  camp  scenes,  xvi- 
133. 

— N— 

NAPOLEON,  III.,  probable  instigator 
of  filibustering  schemes,  iii-22. 

NATIONAL,    career   of,    v-37. 

NATIVES,  easy  mode  of  life,  i-1 ;  not 
addicted  to  reading,  i-4;  discourage  im- 
migration,   i-5. 

NAUGHTON.  W.  W.,  sporting  editor  of 
Chronicle,   xvi-133. 

NAVIGATION,  strong  interest  in, 
vi-48. 

NAVAL  IRREGULARITIES,  Mon- 
taigne, Hanscom  and  Jordan  charged 
with,    xi-187. 

NAVY  PAY  CERTIFICATES,  value- 
less paper  accepted  by  banks,  xi-S7. 

NERI.  Father,  his  demonstration  of 
electric  lighting,  xiy-110. 

NESFTELD,  David,  editorial  writer 
Daily   Mail,   xiii-106. 

NEVADA  BANK,  founded  by  Flood, 
O'Brien   and   Mackey,   x-83. 

NEWS,  transmitted  through  the  mis- 
sions. i-2:  of  gold  discovery  weeks  reach- 
ing  Monterey,   i-2;   not  rapidly   transmit- 


Index 


353 


ted  to  Californian,  i-5;  early  papers  de- 
ficient in,  ii-9;  received  by  steamer,  ii-10; 
steamer  editions  in  early  days,  ii-10;  lit- 
tle space  accorded  to  its  presentation, 
ii-10;  conciseness  a  feature  of  presenta- 
tion, ii-10;  by  overland  stage  line,  ii-10; 
by  Pony  Express,  ii-10;  Point  Lobos  tele- 
graph constructed,  ii-10;  Los  Angeles  a 
poor  base  in  early  days,  ii-11;  reporting 
not  highly  developed,  ii-11;  important 
events  briefly  treated,  ii-12;  mining  in- 
telligence cliiefly  copied,  ii-12;  municipal 
documents  quoted  at  length,  ii-12;  first 
Mayor  of  San  Fi'ancisco's  message,  ii-12; 
intelligence  from  Australia  accorded 
much  space,  ii-12;  crime  briefly  reported, 
ii-12;  subordinated  to  editorial,  ii-14j  use 
of  telegraph  increases  during  sixties, 
ix-73;  Chronicle  Press  Association 
formed,  xvi-12y;  Chronicle  secures  New 
York  Associated  Press  franchise,  xvi-129; 
American  Press  Association,  xvi-129; 
California  patrons  of  New  York  Asso- 
ciated Press,  xvi-129;  gathered  by  phone, 
xix-156;  general  use  of  wireless  tele- 
graph, xxii-lSl;  always  enough  to  fill  up 
with,  xix-157;  care  taken  by  modern 
newspapers    to   verify,   xxii-184. 

NEWSPAPERS  and  their  activities; 
Terba  Buena  had  no  paper  before  the 
occupation,  i-3 ;  California  Star,  first 
paper  published  in  Yerba  Buena,  i-4; 
Colton  &  Semple  first  publishers  in  Cali- 
fornia, i-5;  the  plant  of  the  Califor- 
nian, i-5;  Californian  moves  from 
Monterey  to  San  Francisco,  i-5;  first 
boost  edition  published  in  California,  i-6; 
liven  up  Yerba  Buena  after  occupation, 
1-6;  Pony  Express  started  by  New  York 
publishers,  ii-9;  papers  published  in  East 
before  occupation,  ii-9;  twelve  dailies  in 
1853,  ii-10;  a  specimen  daily  of  1850, 
ii-11;  boldly  attack  municipal  corruption, 
ii-14;  those  of  pioneer  days  merely 
pamphlets,  ii-14;  editorial  columns  popu- 
lar, ii-14;  personal  journalism  rampant, 
ii-14;  anonymity  a  characteristic  of  early 
publications,  ii-14;  editors  in  personal 
encounters,  ii-14;  ephemeral  existence  of 
early  publications,  ii-15;  San  Francisco's 
first  daily,  ii-15;  not  much  capital  re- 
quired to  start  them,  ii-16;  not  profitable, 
ii-15;  San  Francisco's  first  batch,  ii-15; 
not  severe  critics  of  land  frauds,  iii-17; 
pioneer  editors  well  informed,  iii-19: 
encouragement  of  filibustering  by,  iii-19; 
editors  favor  annexation  movements,  iii- 
20;  favor  annexation  of  Cuba,  iii-20;  ad- 
vocate annexation  of  China,  iii-21 ; 
slavery  the  engrossing  subject,  iii-22;  ab- 
sorption in  national  affairs  diverts  atten- 
tion from  local  evils,  iii-23;  James  King 
of  William's  personalities,  iv-2fi;  small 
circulations  in  pioneer  days,  iv-2S;  Vigi- 
lance Committee  of  lS5fi  causes  with- 
drawal of  advertising  from  Herald,  iv- 
30;  absence  of  conventionalism,  iv-31; 
much  space  devoted  to  slavery  discus- 
sion, v-35;  little  attention  devoted  tp 
literature,  art,  etc.,  v-35;  not  paying  en- 
terprises during  fifties,  v-35;  publisher 
and  editor  combined  in  one  person,  v-35; 
lack  of  attractive  features  in  pioneer 
days.  v-3fi;  list  of  tliose  published  dur- 
ing fifties,  v-3fi:  equipment  of  an  office 
during  the  fifties,  v-36;  editors  produce 
the  sensations,  v-35;  Sunday  weeklies, 
v-37;  their  limited  appeal  in  the  fifties, 
V-3S;  produced  by  small  forces,  v-38; 
those  of  the  fifties  filled  with  scandals, 
v-39;  editors  who  dropped  into  poetry, 
v-39;  college  bred  men  resort  to  jour- 
nalism,   v-40;    editorial    rivalry    intense 


in  fifties,  v-40;  public  partial  to  editorial 
"scrapping,"  v-40;  dramatic  criticism  a 
prominent  feature,  v-41;  early  discus- 
sions of  climate,  v-41;  telegraph  pro- 
motes disposition  to  amplify,  vi-4  2;  opin- 
ions in  demand  prior  to  Civil  War,  vi-42; 
defend  acts  of  Vigilance  Committee,  vi- 
44;  discuss  Broderick-'rerry  duel,  vi-44; 
little  interest  in  State  division  question, 
vi-45;  not  concerned  over  Slate  capital 
location,  vi-47;  a  unit  on  importance  of 
bay  of  San  Francisco,  vi-47;  maritime  re- 
ports a  feature,  vi-4S;  insistent  demand 
for  low  taxes  retards  improvements,  vi- 
50;  brag  about  big  wheat  farm.s,  vi-51; 
list  of  survivors  of  Civil  War,  vii-54;an 
extensive  mortality  list,  vi-53;  slow  Im- 
provement in  journalistic  methods,  vii-53; 
dominance  of  the  composing  room,  vii-53; 
flamboyant  typography  avoided,  vii-5.i; 
advertisers  not  exacting  as  to  typog- 
raphy, vii-53;  effect  of  reduction  of  paper 
prices,  vii-57;  George  E.  Barnes  criticises 
early  reporting,  vii-57;  names  of  some  of 
early  reporters,  vii-57;  reporting  during 
the  sixties,  vii-58:  unsatisfaciory  reports 
of  local  movements  during  Civil  War, 
vii-5S;  activity  in  editorial  columns  dur- 
ing Civil  War,  vii-5y;  San  Francisco  jour- 
nals with  Southern  proclivities,  vii-59; 
mobs  gut  ottices  of  Confederate  sym- 
pathizers, vii-GO;  attitude  toward  specific 
contract  act,  vii-Gl;  prevent  scaling  of 
debts  by  tlireats  of  ostracism,  vii-62;  San 
Francisco  Chronicle  founded,  viii-63; 
foundation  of  San  Francisco  Examiner, 
viii-63;  Dramatic  Chronicle  first  name  of 
San  Francisco  Chronicle,  viii-64;  tlieir 
early  home,  viii-G5;  assassination  of 
Lincoln,  illustrated  by  Chronicle,  viii-69; 
Bret  Harte,  Mark  Twain  and  Joaquin 
Miller  contributors  to  Chronicle,  ix-71- 
72;  Chronicle  reports  earthquake  of  lS6c>; 
in  extras,  ix-72;  make-up  of  dailies  dur- 
ing sixties,  ix-73;  Alta  absorbs  Times, 
ix-73;  Call  published  at  121/2  cents  a 
week,  ix-73:  Bulletin  and  Call  under 
same  ownership,  ix-73;  build  great  hopes 
on  completion  of  overland  railway,  ix-74; 
hostility  of  to  converting  Goat  island 
into  railway  terminal,  ix-75;  attitude  of 
toward  mining  stock  gambling,  ix-77; 
Chronicle's  assaults  on  land  monopoly, 
x-79;  affected  by  discovery  of  Big 
Bonanza,  x-80;  expose  mining  stock 
manipulators,  x-Sl;  warn  £)t'0Ple  of 
danger  of  mining  stock  .'peculation,  x-S3; 
attempt  to  institute  libel  suits  against 
Chronicle  in  every  county,  xi-85;  as  a 
source  for  historical  infcrmation,  xii- 
91;  Chronicle's  advocacy  of  Con.'-titut ion 
•of  1879;  xii-92;  antagonists  of  Constitu- 
tion of  1879  try  to  drive  Chronicle  out 
of  business,  xii-92;  Eastern  press  ill  in- 
formed concerning  Constitution  of  1879, 
xii-93;  retraction  bill  introdticed  in  Leg- 
islature, xii-93;  libel  law  amended  con- 
fining actir-ns  to  a  single  county,  xii-94; 
career  of  Chronicle  typifies  development 
of  journalism,  x;ii-97;  heads  modest  and 
otherwise,  xiii-98;  Chronicle  introduces 
Innovations  in  heading,  xiii-97:  Chronicle 
issues  first  eight-page  edition,  xiii-99; 
advent  of  Sunday  magazine,  xiii-99;  low- 
grade-literary  offerings,  xiii-99;  journal- 
istic conservatism  illustrated  by  the  Bul- 
letin, xiii-99;  modest  quarters  of  early 
journals,  xiii-99;  makeshift  quarters  of 
in  earlv  days,  xiii-100;  a  co-operative 
failure.xiii-lOO:  c^areer  of  Loring  Picker- 
ing. yiii-lOO;  clinnges  in  ownership  of 
Alta  California,  xiii-lOO;  J.  W.  Simonton, 
Pacific  Coa.'^t   manager   New   York   Asso- 


354 


Index 


cJated  Press,  xiii-100;  four-page  editions 
maintain  tlieir  vogue,  xiii-101;  liand  com- 
position and  cost  of,  xiii-101;  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson's  newspaper  worlc,  xiii- 
102;  San  Francisco  Chronicle  well  writ- 
ten, xiii-103;  growtli  of  Sunday  magazine, 
xiii-103;  limited  space  accorded  to  sports 
in  early  days,  xiii-103;  reporters  who 
could  do  all  around  work,  xiii-104;  a  list 
of  well-known  writers  of  the  eighties, 
xiii-105;  Examiner's  devotion  to  orthodox 
Democracy,  xiii-105;  editors  politically 
honored,  xiii-105;  Samuel  Seabough's 
vigorous  editorials,  xiii-106;  John  P. 
Young  made  managing  editor  Chronicle 
in  1S78,  xiii-107;  Chronicle  moves  into 
its  Kearny  and  Bush  street  building,  xiv- 
lOS;  Chronicle's  Kearny-street  first  San 
Francisco  building  specially  constructed 
for  a  newspaper,  xiv-108;  equipment  of 
the  new  Chronicle  office,  xiv-lOS;  San 
Francisco  Chronicle  inaugurates  index 
card  system  in  its  library,  xiv-110; 
Chronicle  indexed,  xiv-110;  Whitelaw 
Reid  says  Chronicle  has  best  library  sys- 
tem in  country,  xiv-111;  French  attach 
great  importance  to  interview  in  Chron- 
icle with  Henri  Rochefort,  xiv-113;  pub- 
lication of  overland  passenger  list,  xiv- 
113;  publication  of  letter  list  by  Chron- 
icle, xiv-113;  methods  of  still  provincial 
in  the  eighties,  xiv-113;  take  lively  inter- 
est in  outside  world,  xiv-114;  reports  of 
Franco-Prussian  war,  xiv-114;  complain 
that  Eastern  press  minimizes  Pacific 
Coast  happenings,  xiv-115;  account  of 
Grant  reception  by  Chronicle  an  unprec- 
edented feat  of  reporting,  xv-118; 
Chronicle  employs  first  woman  reporter, 
xv-119;  big  promotion  editions,  xv-120; 
the  days  when  there  vvere  party  organs, 
xvi-123;  San  Francisco  Chronicle's  un- 
aided fight  against  railway  abuses,  xvi- 
125;  Examiner  appears  as  a  morning 
paper,  xvi-126;  Chronicle  a  pronounced 
advocate  of  protection,  xvi-127;  Chron- 
icle's weather  warnings  an  instance  of 
journalism  that  does  things,  xvi-127: 
Call,  Bulletin  and  Sacramento  Union 
patrons  of  New  York  Associated  Press, 
xvi-129;  American  Press  Association,  xvi- 
129;  Chronicle  Press  Association  formed, 
xvi-129;  improvement  in  character  of  il- 
lustrations, xvi-130;  zinc  etched  plates 
used  in  illustrating,  xvi-131;  methodical 
make  tip  of  matter,  xvi-131;  number  of 
capable  writers  increases  during  the 
eighties,  xvi-131;  Chronicle  attaches  pro- 
moted to  high  positions,  xvi-132; 
McEwen,  Flynn  and  Goodman  start  a 
weekly,  xvi-i34;  erection  of  skyscraper 
of  Chronicle  an  instance  of  journalism 
that  does  things,  xvii-13fi;  comparison  il- 
lustrating growth  of  Chronicle,  xvii-137; 
prosperity  promotes  development  of 
journalism,  xviii-144;  no  monopoly  in 
news  gathering,  xviii-144;  only  become 
great  bv  the  slow  process  of  upbuilding, 
xviii-145;  vicissitudes  and  decease  of  Alta 
California,  xviii-145:  disappearance  of 
Stock  Exchange,  xviii-145;  Evening  Re- 
port killed  by  reduction  to  1  cent,  xviii- 
145:  Call  purchased  by  John  D.  Spreckels, 
xviii-14fi;  editorial  writers  for  Bulletin 
and  Call,  xviii-146;  on  municipal  acquisi- 
tion of  water  system,  xviii-147;  contro- 
versies over  street  improvements,  xviii- 
148;  disappearance  of  the  editorial  pre- 
dicted, xviii-14S;  Charles  M.  Shortridge 
editor  of  the  Call,  xviii-149;  Chronicle's 
special  irrigation  editions,  xviii-149; 
their  attitude  toward  Hawaiian  annexa- 
ton,    xviii-150;     publication    of    Young's 


Bimetallism  or  Monometallism  in  a 
single  issue  of  Chronicle  an  unprece- 
dented newspaper  feat,  xviii-152;  cheap- 
est of  all  manufactured  products,  xix- 
153;  fruit  of  co-operation,  xix-153; 
the  people's  library,  xix-154;  print 
best  products  of  modern  literature,  xix- 
154;  Sunday  magazine  the  people's 
library,  xix-154;  the  rewards  they  offer 
the  author,  xix-154;  introduction  of  type- 
setting machines,  xix-155;  introduction 
and  use  of  telephone  by,  xix-156;  care 
taken  by  modern  to  verify  reports,  xix- 
157;  the  pressure  of  matter,  x»x-157;  ef- 
forts made  to  verify  stories,  xix-157; 
use  of  typewriting  machines,  xix-158;. 
shorthand  reports  not  common,  xix-158; 
literary  ranks  recruited  from,  xix-158; 
expose  irregularities  of  municipal  gov- 
ernment, xx-163;  destruction  by  fire  of 
Chronicle  tower,  xx-164:  Schniitz-Ruef 
crowd  bring  suits  against  Chronicle,  xx- 
164;  President  Roosevelt  applauds  Chron- 
icle monograph  on  modern  trusts,  xx-165; 
growth  of  summer  resort  advertising^ 
xx-166;  help  charitable  undertakings, 
xx-167;  report  women's  club  activities^ 
xx-167;  growing  use  of  color  illustra- 
tion, xx-168;  growth  of  cartooning  in, 
xx-168;  continue  to  assail  Ruef-Schmitz 
methods,  xxi-170;  part  played  by  them  in. 
the  great  fire,  xxi-171;  efforts  of  staffs- 
to  avoid  break  in  publication,  xxi-172; 
joint  edition  of  Chronicle,  Examiner  and 
Call,  xxi-173;  Fillmore  street  their 
headquarters,  xxi-174;  slight  interest  In 
telegraphic  news  for  a  time,  xxi-174; 
many  pages  of  small  ads  of  inquiry,  xxi- 
174;  plants  of  all  San  Francisco  papers- 
destroyed  in  1906,  xxi-175;  Chronicle 
prints  sixty-two-page  Sunday  editions- 
November,  1906,  xxi-176;  Chronicle's  re- 
port of  Jeffries-Johnson  fight  at  Reno, 
xxi-177;  longest  telegraphic  report  ever- 
sent  to  Coast,  xxi-177;  death  of  Charles,, 
son  of  M.  H.  de  Young,  September  17, 
1913,  x.xi-179:  number  of  publications  in 
California  1912,  xxii-lSO;  German  Demo- 
krat.  Bulletin  and  Journal  of  Commerce 
survivors  from  pioneer  days,  xxii-189; 
San  Francisco  becomes  a  two-morning- 
daily  city,  xxii-181;  general  use  of  wire- 
less telegraph  by,  xxii-181;  many  editions^ 
printed  by  those  of  San  Francisco,  xxii- 
182;  suburban  editions  printed  by  San 
Francisco  papers,  xxii-lS2;  special  trains, 
used  to  send  out  early  editions,  xxii-182; 
many  changes  in  make  up,  xxii-182; 
labors  of  night  editor  greatly  increased, 
xxii-lS2;  cheapest  of  manufactured 
products,  xxii-lS3;  number  of  employes 
of  Chronicle  1915,  xxii-184;  care  taken 
to  verify  statements,  xxii-lS4;  Chronicle' 
publishes  Japanese  and  Pan-American 
special  editions,  xxii-lSS;  "Journalism  in. 
California,"  by  John  P.  Young,  written 
for  Chronicle's  Jubilee  Edition,  xxiii-191; 
part  played  by  them  in  making  a  suc- 
cess of  the  Panama-Pacific  International 
Exposition,  xxiii-193. 

NEW  YORK  ASSOCIATED  PRESS, 
J.  W.  Simonton  Pacific  Coast  manager, 
xiii-lOO;  Chronicle  secures  franchise 
from,  xvi-129;  Call.  Bulletin  and  Sacra- 
mento Union  its  patrons,  xvi-129. 

NEWS  LETTER,  office  gutted  by  unioa 
mob,  vii-60:  founded  by  Frederick  Mar- 
riott,  xiii-105. 

NEUTRALITY,  not  respected,  iii-21. 
NICARAGUA  ROUTE,  canal  projected 
by    Vanderbilt,    vi-48. 


Index 


355 


NIGHT  EDITOR,  many  changes  in 
malce  up  increases  his   work,   xxii-lS2. 

NON-PARTISANISM,  People's  parties 
after  1S56,  vi-42. 

NORRIS,  Frank,  receives  inspiration 
in  Clironicle  office,  xix-160. 

NORTH  BEACH,  attempt  of  Harry 
Meiggs  to  boost,  iv-31. 

NUGENT,   John,   founds   Herald,   v-37. 


—0— 

O'BRIEN,  William,  one  of  big  bonanza 
owners,  x-79. 

O'CONNELL,  Daniel,  reporter  and 
special  writer,  xiii-105;  Bohemians  honor 
with  annual  dinner,  xiii-106. 

ODD  FELLOWS,  specially  prepared 
history   of  in   Chronicle,   xv-121. 

OLDER,  Fremont,  managing  editor  of 
Bulletin,    xx-162. 

O'MEARA,  James,  on  editorial  rivalry 
in  the  fifties,  v-40;  his  account  of  Brod- 
erick-Terry  duel,  vi-4  6. 

OPAL  CITY,  name  given  to  Midwinter 
Exposition,   xvii-141. 

OUTING  EDITIONS,  of  San  Francisco 
Chronicle,  xx-167. 

OVERLAND  STAGE  LINE,  news  by, 
ii-10. 

— P— 

PACIFIC,  career  of  the,  v-36. 

PACIFIC  COAST,  Chronicle  its  cham- 
pion,  xviii-150. 

PACIFIC  MAIL  STEAMSHIP  COM- 
PANY, attempt  of  Southerners  to  captur© 
its  vessels,   vii-5S. 

PALACE  HOTEL,  construction  started 
by  Ralston,  x-S2. 

PAGE,  Horace  F.,  member  of  Con- 
gress, charged  with  buying  votes,  xi-87. 

PANICS,  effects  of  that   of  1857,  v-34. 

PAN-AMERICAN  EDITION  published 
by  Chronicle,  xxii-lSS. 

PANAMA  CANAL,  proposals  that  an- 
ticipated its  construction,   vi-4S. 

PANAMA-PACIFIC  INTER- 

NATIONAL EXPOSITION,  opened  Feb- 
ruary 20,  1915,  xxiii-192;  attendance, 
xxiii-192;  appreciation  of  by  Eastern  and 
foreign  critics,  xxiii-192;  Chronicle 
devotes  twelve  pages  to  description  in  its 
Jubilee  Edition,  xxiii-193. 

PALL  MALL  GAZETTE,  false  stories 
concerning  Stevenson  in  San  Francisco, 
xxiii-102. 

PAPER,  high  cost  of  white  news 
paper  during  the  war,  vii-57;  cost  of 
white  news  in  big  Sunday  editions,  xix- 
153. 

PARIS  OF  AMERICA,  W.  C.  Ralston 
aimed  to  make  San  Francisco,  x-92;  city 
beautiful  idea  in  San   Francisco,  xx-166. 

POLITICAL,  divisions  in  Democratic 
ranks,  iv-26:  nominations  sold,  iv-27; 
Law  and  Order  party  advocates  not  all 
mob  sympathizers,  iv-29;  People's  party 
formed  as  result  of  Vigilante  uprising, 
y-33;  People's  party  makes  nominations 
in  secret,  vi-42;  mixed  condition  of  Dem- 
ocratic party,  vi-45;  rapid  decline  of 
Southern  Democrats  after  1860,  viii-59; 
local  Republican  boss  helps  Pinney  to 
escape,  xi-S5;  Republican  bossism,  xi-85; 


Pinney  as  manipulator,  xi-85;  San  Fran- 
cisco Chronicle  a  Republican  paper,  but 
not  an  organ,  x-SS;  Republicans  defeated 
as  result  of  Pinney's  exposures,  xi-S8; 
Senatorial  aspirants  seek  newspaper 
help,  xiii-106;  when  Democratic  editors 
opposed  centralization,  xvi-123;  Buckley 
Democratic  boss,  xviii-14S;  Buckley  puts 
good  men  at  head  of  his  party,  xviii-148; 
claims  of  Ruef  and  Schmitz,  xx-163;  suc- 
cess of  the  Workingmen,  xx-163. 

PATHFINDER,  career  of  the,  v-37. 

PATRONAGE,  offices  sold   for   money. 

PAVEMENTS,  hostility  of  Bulletin  to 
smooth,   xviii-148 

PEOPLE'S  PARTY,  makes  big  reduc- 
tions in  expenditures,  iv-25;  outcome  of 
Vigilante  uprising,  v-33;  its  opposition  to 
improvement,    xviii-14  6. 

PERSONAL  JOURNALISM,  preva- 
lence of,  ii-14;  in  1856,  iv-26;  applauded 
by  pioneers,  iv-2S;  utter  aljsence  of  con- 
ventionality  in   pioneer   press,   iv-31. 

PETROLEUM,  no  interest  in  its  de- 
velopment in   early  days,  xv-117. 

PHOTOGRAPHY,  use  in  newspaper  il- 
lustrating processes,   xvi-131. 

PICAYUNE,  Evening,  career  of  the 
San  Francisco,  v-37. 

PICKERING,  Loring,  part  owner  of 
San  Francisco  Call,  ix-73;  controls  course 
of  Call,  ix-73;  relations  of  proprietors  of 
Call  and  Bulletin,  xiii-100;  his  news- 
paper career,  xiii-100. 

PICTORIAL  TOWN  TALK,  v-37. 

PINDRAY,  Marquis  de,  plots  against 
Mexico,  iii-22. 

PINNEY,  George  M.,  chief  clerk 
United  States  Mint,  xi-85;  clerk  in  Navy 
pay  office,  xi-85;  fails  as  a  stock  broker 
and  absconds,  xi-S5;  surrenders  as  a 
deserter,  xi-85;  relation  of  his  revela- 
tions involve  Chronicle  in  libel  suits, 
xi-87;  witness  for  The  Chronicle  at 
Placerville,  xi-87;  develops  forgetfulness, 
xi-87. 

PIXLEY,  Frank,  editor  and  publisher, 
xiii-105;  his  conduct  of  the  Argonaut, 
xiii-105;  still  in  harness  in  late  eighties, 
xvi-131. 

POETRY,  editors  addicted  to  quoting, 
v-39. 

POLICE,  inadequate  force  during 
pioneer  period,  ii-12;  six  constables  in 
San  Francisco  in  1849,  v-39;  force  in- 
creased in  1856,  v-39. 

POLICE  GAZETTE,   career  of,  v-37. 

POLK,  Willis,  draws  designs  for  a 
thirty-seven-story  Chronicle  building, 
xxii-189. 

POND,  E.  B.,  Buckley's  candidate  for 
Mayor,  xviii-148. 

PONY  EXPRESS,  New  York  papers 
start  one,  ii-9;  between  Missouri  river 
and  San  Francisco,  ii-10;  arrival  of  first 
rider,  ii-10;  dangers  incurred  by  riders, 
ii-11;  beats  telegraphic  arrangements, 
ii-11. 

POPULATION,  California  and  San 
Francisco  in  1856,  iv-28;  slow  growth 
after   1856,   vi-51. 

PORTOLA,  his  hunting  party  dis- 
covers bay  of  San  Francisco,   i-2. 

PRESIDENT,  career  of  the  San  Fran- 
cisco,  v-37. 

PRIMARIES,  ignored  after  1856.  vi-42; 
efforts  of  Chronicle  to  secure  honest, 
xx-164. 


Index 


PRICES  CURRENT,  career  of  the 
ban  Francisco,  v-36. 

PRINTERS,  start  San  Francisco  Call 
and  sell  out,  xiii-100. 

PRINTING  PRESS,  first  one  used  in 
California,  i-4;  brought  by  Mormon 
colony  1-4;  earliest  California  in  Golden 
Gate  Park  Museum,  ii-S;  hand  presses 
in  use,  v-35;  Adams  steam-power  press 
v-Jo;  effect  of  introduction  of  rotary 
presses,  v-35;  Hoe's  first  press,  v-35- 
first  perfecting  press  in  Cincinnati,  v-36; 
The  Chronicle's  four-cylinder.  xiii-lOl- 
ban  Francisco  Call's  French  fast  press' 
xiii-lOl;  Chronicle  installs  two  Hoe  per- 
fecting,  xiv-109. 

PROMOTION,  universality  of  boosting 
habit.  11-9;  first  boost  paper  issued,  i-6- 
Harry  Meigg's  an  active  promoter  of  im- 
provements, iv-31:  Chronicle's  big  "Pros- 
perity"  edition,  xv-120. 

PROGRESS  AND  POVERTY,  Henry 
George's  book,  x-7S;  circumstances  unde- 
which  It  was  written,  xiii-102;  its  land 
monopolization   theories   discredited,   xv- 

PROSPECTS  OP  CALIFORNIA,  title 
of  first  boost  paper,  i-6. 

PROSPERITY,  promotes  development 
of  journalism,  xviii-144;  cause  of  that 
of  San  Francisco,  xx-163;  Schmitz  and 
■'^H*^^™^'^"''''  to  have  made  city  prosperous 
xxi-170;  city  prosperous  on  eve  of  great 
nre,  xxi-171. 

PROSPERITY  EDITION,  published 
by  Chronicle  in  188-',  xv-120 

PROTECTIVE  POLICY,  Chronicle's 
stanch  advocacy  of,  xvi-126;  Chronicle 
devotes  eight  pages  to  subject,  xvi-127- 
ban  Francisco  Chronicle's  devotion  to 
principles  of,  xviii-152;  a  Chronicle  pre- 
diction made  in  1SS2  realized,  xviii-lo'^- 
twelve-page  presentation  of  merits  of 
system  in  Chronicle,  xx-166 

PUBLIC  BALANCE,  career  of  the  San 
Francisco,   v-37. 

^.jPyBLIC  IMPROVEMENTS,  needed  by 

— R— 

i^,^'^-^^!^^^^'^  completion  of  overland 
looked  forward  to,  ix-74;  early  efforts 
at  monopoly  by  Central  Pacific,  ix-75- 
attempt  of  Central  Pacific  to  secure  Goat 
island,  ix-75;  San  Francisco  issues  bonds 
to  Southern  Pacific,  ix-75;  corrupt 
methods  of  Central  Pacific  managers, 
ix-^6;  when  California  had  but  one  road 
IT  i  attitude  of  people  toward  at- 
tempted monopoly,  ix-76;  last  spike  of 
first  overland  driven,  ix-76:  all  favor  big 

Jfn"tli^'"S"'^  *°'a?-'^^A  Legislature  domN 
nated  by,  xii-93;  Central  Pacific  in- 
stigates retraction  act,  xii-93;  Consti- 
tution of  1879  creates  Commission  with 
plenary  powers,  xii-95;  Henry  George  not 
a  victim  of  their  oppression,  xiii-101- 
publication  by  newspapers  of  overland 
passenger  list,  xiv-113;  Interstate  Com- 
^J^i  99^'^i-.*;'^^^';'"^  wedge  of  regulation. 
?Vy''lr'^'.  ^'"'®  fear  of  monopoly  felt  in 
*^«  Efist,  xvi-124;  how  the  Southern  Pa- 
cific beat  attempts  at  regulation,  xvi-l"!- 
^lfi^*^9r;'"?>"','?i?''''*'.°"  °^  Legislatures  hv', 
^7-1  or'  9;'l'foi'.nias  venal  commissions, 
xvi-12.^:  Chronicle's  efforts  to  secure 
regulation  of,  xvi-125;  wires  used  to 
transmit  news,  xvi-129. 


RALSTON,  W.  C,  his  remarkable 
career,  x-Sl;  promotes  manufactures  and 
x-si''  ^^^^^^^^^^^'  x-^1;    tragic  death  of, 

RApUSSETT-BOULBON,  Count  Gaston 
Kaoul  de,  plots  against  Mexico,   iii-22 

READING  HABIT,  its  effect  on  devel- 
opment  of  California,   i-4. 

r./^^^^P^^^'r.r^'"^^'^  ^t   by   Constitutiou 
of   1&  i9,  xiii-95. 

REGULATION,  opposed  by  Demo- 
cratic press,  xvi-123;  attempts  at  rail- 
way control  in  California,  xvi-124. 
•  i^.^^P,'  Whitelaw,  his  tribute  to  Chron- 
icle s  library  system,  xiv-lll;  his  opin- 
ion of  future  of  reporting,  xiii-lOl 

REMEDIAL  LOAN  ASSOCIATION 
..^^^'f?^    through     efforts     of     Chronicle.' 

^  I^ENO,    Johnson-Jeffries  fight  in   1910, 

REPORTING,  conciseness  a  character- 
istic of  early,  li-ii;  duels  briefly  re- 
corded in  pioneer  days,  ii-15;  not  high- 
ly developed  in  fifties,  v-38;  an  early 
editor  criticizes  work  of  reporters,  vii- 
57 ;  not  on  a  high  plane  during  the  sixties, 
V11-08;  local  room  recruited  from  the 
professions,  xiii-104;  future  reporters  to 
be  Macaulays,  xiii-104;  account  of  Grant 
reception  in  Chronicle,  xv-llS;  authcs' 
carnival  reported  at  great  length,  xv-118- 
!<  lorence  Apponyi  Loughead,  first  woman 
reporter,  xv-119;  reporters  endeavor  to 
get  the  truth,  xix-157;  shorthand  not 
much  employed,  xix-15S;  longhand  de- 
velops facility  of  expression,  xix-15S- 
ban  Francisco  Chronicle  sends  dozen  men 
to  report  prize  fight  at  Reno,  xxi-177- 
visible  improvement  over  old  methods 
XX11-1S4;  qualifications  of  a  modern  re- 
porter, xxii-lS4. 

RETRACTION  ACT,  beaten  in  Legis- 
lature,  1877-78.  xii-93. 

RICHARDSON.    Captain,     enjoys    mo- 
nopoly of   bay  traffic,   i-3. 
^^RICHARDSON,  killing  of  by  Cora,  iv- 

RITCHIE,  Anna  Cora  Mowatt,  Lon- 
don correspondent  of  Chronicle,   ix-71. 

ROACH,  Philip  A.,  one  of  founders  of 
Examiner,  viii-63. 

ROBERTSON,  Peter,  president  of  Bo- 
hemian Club,  xvi-132;  author  of  "The 
Seedy  Gentleman,"  xvi-132;  dramatic 
critic   of  Chronicle,   xvi-132. 

ROBESON,  Secor,  Secretary  of  the 
Navy,  xi-S7. 

ROCHEFORT.  Henri,  interviewed  by 
Chronicle,   xiv-113. 

ROOSEVELT.  Theodore,  his  attitude 
on  trusts,  xx-165;  his  first  visit  to  San 
Francisco,  xx-165. 

RUEP,  Abraham,  his  gang  of  "paint 
eaters,"  xx-163. 

— s— 

SAN  DIEGO,  linked  with  San  Fran- 
cisco in  chain  of  missions,  1-2. 

SAND  LOT.  disturbances  fore- 
.shadowed,  ix-76;  and  Constitution  of 
1879,  xii-91;  Denis  Kearney's  participa- 
tion in,  xii-93. 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  connected  by  tele- 
graph with  San  Jose  and  Point  Lobos. 
ii-10;  first  Vigilance  Committee,  ii-12; 
name  changed  from  Yerba  Buena,  i-7;  in 


Index 


357 


the  eighties,  xiv-109;  peculiarities  of  its 
people  made  much  of,  xiv-113;  news- 
paper methods  indicate  provincialism, 
xiv-113. 

SAN    FRANCISCO    CHRONICLE, 
founded  1S65,  viii-64;  its  boyish  founders, 
viii-64;  started  as  "Dramatic  Chronicle," 
viii-64;    its    humble     beginnings,     viii-64; 
novel    modes    of    expanding    circulation, 
viii-65;  soon  gains  advertising  patronage, 
viii-66;    its     modest     equipment,     viii-65; 
Mark    Twain    writes     for,     viii-66;     Bret 
Harte  an  early  contributor,  viii-66;  Tre- 
menhere  Johns,  first  dramatic  critic,  viii- 
67;    theater    managers    dislike    its    frank 
criticism,  viii-6b;  publishes  first  news  of 
Lincoln's  assassination,  viii-68;  illustra- 
ton  of  assassination   of  Lincoln,   viii-69; 
boosts   Mark   Twain,    ix-71;    Anna    Cora 
Mowatt  Richie,  first  London  correspond- 
ent  of,   ix-71;    Prentice   Mulford   contrib- 
utor,  ix-71;   Dramatic  Chronicle  appears 
as  Daily  Morning  Chronicle,  ix-71;   Bret 
Harte's  uncopyrighted   contributions,  ix- 
71;  Joaquin  Miller's  contributions  to,  ix- 
72;    reports    earthquake    of    1868    in    ex- 
tenso,    ix-72;    Henry    George    writes    for, 
x-79;  exposes  mining  stock  manipulators, 
x-Sl;  Pinney's  story  published  in,  xi-85; 
criminal  libel  suits  instituted  by  Repub- 
lican politicians,  xi-85;  tried  for  libel  in 
El   Dorado   county,    x-87;    charges   H.    F. 
Page  with  buying  votes,  xi-87;  a  Repub- 
lican   paper    but    not    an    organ,    xi-88; 
causes  adoption  of  law  to  regulate  bank- 
ing,   xi-S9;    advocates    adoption    of    Con- 
stitution   of    1879,    xii-92;    opponents    of 
Constitution  of  1879  try  to  drive   out  of 
business,    xii-92;     defies    antagonists     of 
Confstitution    of    1879,   xii-93;   causes   de- 
feat   of    retraction     act,     xii-93;     brings 
about    modification    of    libel    law,    xii-94; 
its    thorough    discussion    of   Constitution 
of  1879,  xii-94;  hires  halls  for  advocates 
of  Constitution  of  1879,  xii-95;  celebrates 
victory  of  advocates  of  new  Constitution, 
xii-95;  its  career  typifies  development  of 
journalism,  xiii-97;  breaks  away  from  set 
headings,  xiii-97:  Sunday  eight-page  edi- 
tion Issued,  xiii-99;  its  home  before  1878, 
xiii-101;     relations     with     Robert     Louis 
Stevenson,  xiii-102;  James  Bryce  pays  a 
tribute  to  its  writers,  xiii-103;  prophesies 
future     of     aviation     in     1881,     xiii-103; 
growth  of  Sunday  magazine,    xiii-103;   a 
training  school  for  journalists,   xiii-104; 
Albert  Sutliffe  its  correspondent  in  Tong 
King,  xiii-104;  Samuel  Seabough's  vigor- 
ous   editorials,    xiii-106;    John    P.    Young 
becomes  managing  editor,   1878,  xiii-107; 
moves   into   its  Kearny  and   Bush   street 
building,   xiv-108;   up  to   date   equipment 
of  Kearny-street   new   home  of,  xiv-109; 
installs  two  Hoe  perfecting  presses,  xiv- 
109;   its  Kearny-street  building  in   heart 
of    theater    district,    xiv-110;    index    card 
system    installed    in    1879,    xiv-110;    sub- 
stitutes   index    card     system     for     scrap 
books,  xiv-110;  its  advent  in  the  field  of 
journalism    that    "does   things,"    xiv-111; 
its  account  of  the  diamond  mine  swindle, 
xi-v-112:    its  reports   of  Modoc  war,  xiv- 
112;  interviews  Henri  Rochefort,  French 
communists,  xiv-113;   success  of  its  war 
on    stock    gambling,     xv-117;     death     of 
Charles    de    Young,     xv-117;     M.     H.     de 
Young  assumes   full   control   of,   xv-117; 
its   report   of  Grant's   reception,    xv-118; 
reports  author's  carnival  at  great  length, 
xv-118;   first  to  employ  woman  reporter, 
xv-119;    leads    successful     fight     against 
Chinese     immigration,    xv-120;    its    pre- 


dilection    for     statistics,     xv-120;     novel 
features   of   its   annual   editions,   xv-l"U- 


126;    publishes    a    history    of    education, 
xvi-127;  maugurates  a  weather  warning 
service,  xvi-127;   secures  franchise  from 
New     York     Associated     Press,     xvi-129- 
George  Hamlin   Fitch  joins  Chronicle  in 
1880,    xvi-132;    Vivian's   articles    in    Sun- 
day magazine,  xvi-132;  a  training  school 
for  statesmen,  xvi-132;  its  new  building 
at    Market,    Geary    and    Kearny    streets, 
xvii-135;  establishes  center  of  city,  xvii- 
136;  its  building  in  the  heart  of  the  city, 
xvii-136;   publishes  sixty-page  edition   to 
celebrate   occupation     of    new    building, 
xvii-136;     twenty-five    years    of    growth 
described,    xvii-137;    advocates    purchase 
of  water  system  in  1877,  xviii-147;  advo- 
cates smooth   pavements,   xviii-148;   spe- 
cial  editions  devoted  to  irrigation,  xviii- 
149;    special    edition    on    development    of 
State  under  Spanish  and  American  rule, 
xviii-149;    its   Midwinter   Exposition   edir 
tion,    xvii-150;    champions    Pacific    Coast 
interests,    xviii-150;    urges    climatic    ad- 
vantages   of    Southern    California,    xviii- 
150;    predicts    two    great    cities    in    Cali- 
fornia, xviii-150;   story  of  Hawaiian  an- 
nexation by  Walter  Gifford  Smith,  xviii- 
151;    sends    corps    of    correspondents    to 
Klondike,  xviii-151;  special  Klondike  edi- 
tion   July    29,    1897,    xviii-151;    publishes 
Young's     "Bimetallism     or     Monometal- 
lism,"   xvii5-152;    its    devotion    to    princi- 
ples   of    protection,     xviii-152;     difficulty 
experienced     getting    suitable    magazine 
matter,     xix-154;     introduces     telephone 
into  its  new  building,  xix-156;  Rollin  M. 
Daggett,  Walter  Gifford  Smith,   Taliesin 
Evans,    James    O'Meara    and    Marcus    P. 
Wiggin,    editorial    writers     for,     xix-159; 
George  F.  Weeks  first  Sunday  editor,  xix- 
159;    Frank    Bailey     Millard     commences 
career  on,   xix-159;    some  of  its   Sunday 
editors,   xix-159;    city   editors,    1870-1906, 
xix-160;    its    exposures   of  graft,   xx-163: 
tower  of  its  building  burned  during  cele- 
bration of  W.   P.  C.  victory,   xx-164:  as- 
sists   Fairfax    Wheelan    in    effort    to   se- 
cure fair  primary  election,  xx-164;  prints 
monograph  on  trusts  by  John  P.  Young, 
xx-165;  twelve-page  article  on  protection 
in    1894,   xx-166;    outing  editions   of,   xx- 
167;    Davenport's   cartoons,    xx-16S;    a^^- 
dition   to  its  building,  xxi-170;  attempts 
to    issue    extra   April    18.    1906,    xxi-172; 
Charles  de  Young  (son  of  M.  H.)  receives 
his  baptism   of   fire,    xxi-174:   printed    in 
Oakland  Herald  office,  xxi-174;  after  big 
fire  establishes  office  on  Fillmore  street, 
xxi-174;  cause  of  destruction  of  its  build- 
ing,   xxi-175:    its    valuable    reference    li- 
brarv  destroyed,  xxi-175:  first  downtown 
building  to  be  restored  after  fire,  xxi-175; 
its  Market-street  quarters  bustling  three 
months    after    fire,    xxi-176;     Charles     de 
Young    (son    of   M.    H.)     made     business 
manager,    xxi-176:    its    various    business 
managers,    xxi-176;     W.     H.     B.     Fowler 
becomes      business      manager,      xxi-176; 
cashiers   of,  xxi-177;  prints  halftones  of 
Reno   prize    fight    morning    after    event, 
xxi-177;     Tetrazzini     sings    in     front    of 
Chronicle    ofl^ce,    xxi-178;    celebrates    fif- 
tieth    anniversary,      xxii-lSO;      employes 
present  album   to  M.  H.   de  Young,  xxii- 
184;    number  of  employes,   xxii-184;   col- 
lects toys  and  clothing  for  war  orphans, 
xxii-186;    causes   formation   of   Remedial 


■358 


Index 


Loan  Association,  xxii-187;  Willis  Polk 
draws  designs  for  a  thirty-seven-story 
building  for,  xxii-lS9;  Golden  Jubilee  edi- 
tion, January  16,  1915,  xxiii-190;  cele- 
brates Golden  Jubilee  by  publishing 
"Journalism  in  California,"  a  twenty- 
two-page  article,  xxiii-191;  defeats  efforts 
of  Spring  Valley  to  sell  water  system 
at  an   exorbitant    figure,   xxiii-194. 

SAN  FRANCISCO  EXAMINER,  ses 
Examiner. 

SAN  FRANCISCO  DOCK  AND 
WHARF  COMPANY,  offers  to  build 
stone  docks,    vi-50. 

SCHMITZ,  Eugene,  conditions  during 
his  term  of  Mayoralty,  xx-163;  his  third 
election  to  Mayoralty,  xx-163;  claims  to 
have  made  city  prosperous,   xxi-170. 

SCRAP  BOOKS,  discarded  by  Chron- 
icle in  18S0,  xiv-110. 

SCRIPPS  LEAGUE,  buys  Evening  Re- 
port and  makes  a  penny  paper  of  it, 
xviii-145 

SEABOUGH,  Samuel,  editorial  writer, 
xiii-105;  his  attainments  and  methods  of 
writing,  xiii-106. 

SENSATIONS,  found  in  editorial  col- 
umns, v-35. 

SHARON,  William,  brings  about  re- 
habilitation of  Bank  of  California,  x-S2. 

SHORTHAND,  not  much  employed  in 
modern  reporting,  xix-158. 

SHORTRIDGE,  Charles  M.,  becomes 
editor  of  the  Call,  xviii-149. 

SIERRA  NEVADA  DEAL,  end  of  stock 
gambling   excitement,   xv-116. 

SIGNAL  SERVICE,  co-operates  with 
Chronicle  in  testing  value  of  weather 
warnings,  xvi-127. 

SIGNED  ARTICLES,  rare  in  early 
days,  11-14. 

SIMONTON,  James  A.,  part  owner  of 
San  Francisco  Call,  ix-73. 

SIMPSON,  Ernest  S.,  city  editor  of 
Chronicle,  xix-159. 

SKYSCRAPERS,  first  tall  building  in 
San  Francisco  erected  by  M.  H.  de 
Young,  xvii-135;  M.  H.  de  Young  builds 
seventeen-story  annex  to  Chronicle,  xxi- 
171;  another  soaring  building  contem- 
plated for  Chronicle,  xii-189. 

SLAVERY,  hopes  of  extending  insti- 
tution to  California,  i-7;  Monterey  con- 
vention decides  against,  iii-19;  many 
sympathizers  with  institution,  iii-19;  con- 
fused attitude  toward,  iii-19;  editorial  at- 
titude toward  fugitive  slave  act,  iii-20; 
attempts  to  introduce  into  California  re- 
sisted, iii-20;  filibustering  schemes  pro- 
moted by  its  supporters,  iii-21;  plans  of 
French  adventurer  antagonized  by  South- 
erners, iii-22;  the  absorbing  editorial 
topic  of  pioneer  editors,  iii-22;  sentiment 
against  crystallizes  slowly,  iii-22;  hos- 
tility to  Broderick  shown  by  its  sup- 
porters, iv-26;  great  space  devoted  to 
discussion  of,  v-35;  red  hot  editorials  on 
eve  of  Civil  War,  vi-43;  agitation  of  ques- 
tion responsible  for  Broderick-Terry 
duel,  vi-M;  intolerant  attitude  of  South- 
erners, vi-4  5. 

SLOAT,  Commodore,  proclamation  to 
natives  of  California,  i-1. 

SMITH,  Peter,  fraudulent  land  trans- 
actions, iii-18;  bulkhead  job  to  patch  up 
his  titles,  vi-49. 

SMITH,  Walter  Gifford,  writes  story 
,of  Hawaiian  annexation    for    Chronicle, 


xyiii-151;   editorial  writer   for  Chronicle, 

SMITH,  Harry  B.,  sporting  editor  of 
Chronicle,  xxi-177. 

SOMERS,  Fred,  reporter,  correspond- 
ent and  publisher  xiii-105;  assailed  by 
Assemblyman,  xiii-105. 

SOULE,  Frank,  author  of  Annals  of 
ban  Francisco,  v-39;  a  poetical  editor, 
v-40.  ' 

SOUTHERNERS,  influential  in  pioneer 
days,  iii-19;  seek  to  introduce  colonies 
with  slaves,  iii-20;  stigmatize  Northern 
Democrats  as  mudsills  and  doughfaces, 
vi-45;  rapid  decline  of  influence  after 
1860,  vii-59. 

SOUTHERN  PACIFIC,  incorporated 
in    1865,    ix-75. 

SPAIN,  Mexico  revolts  from,  i-1;  in- 
difference of  Spaniards  to  trade,  i-4;  her 
rule  in  province  of  California,  i-1;  dis- 
courages immigration,  i-5. 

SPANISH-AMERICAN  WAR,  fol- 
lowed by  prosperity,  xx-163. 

SPEAR,  Nathan,  reaches  Yerba  Buena 
1840,  i-3. 

SPECIAL  TRAINS,  used  by  San 
Francisco  papers,  xxii-182. 

SPECIAL  EDITIONS,  Japanese  and 
Pan-American  published  by  Chronicle, 
xxii-188;  Chronicle's  Golden  Jubilee  edi- 
tion,  January   16,   1915,  xxiii-190. 

SPECIFIC  CONTRACT  ACT,  to  pre- 
serve circulation  of  gold,  vii-61. 

SPIRIT  OF  THE  TIMES,  career  of, 
v-37. 

SPORTS,  limited  space  accorded  in 
early  days,  xiii-103;  Thomas  E.  Flynn, 
Chronicle's  first  sporting  editor,  xiii-103; 
early  sporting  editors  of  Chronicle,  xvi- 
133;  report  of  a  great  prize  fight  at  Reno, 
xxi-177;  increased  attention  paid  to  re- 
porting, xxi-177;  Benny  Benjamin,  sport- 
ing editor  Chronicle,  xxi-177. 

SPRECKELS,  J.  D.,  purchases  Call, 
xviii-146;  sells  Call  to  M.  H.  de  Young. 
xxii-181. 

SPRING  VALLEY,  valuation  of  in 
1877,  xviii-147;  hostility  to  its  purchase, 
xviii-147. 

STANFORD,  Leland,  directs  legisla- 
tion, xii-93. 

STATE  BOARD  OP  EQUALIZATION, 
its  power  for  good  destroyed,   xvi-125. 

STATE  DIVISION,  little  excitement 
over  early  efforts,   vi-45. 

STATISTICS,  a  feature  of  Chronicle 
annuals,  xv-120. 

STEELE,  Rufus,  Sunday  editor  of 
Chronicle,  xix-159. 

STEAMER  EDITIONS,  newspapers 
publish  on  arrival  of,  ii-10;  peculiarities 
of,  ii-11. 

STEVENS,  Ashton,  dramatic  critic  of 
Examiner,  xix-160. 

STEVENSON,  Robert  Louis,  his  career 
in  San  Francisco  xiii-102;  a  Pall  Mall 
Gazette  yarn  about  him,  xiii-102;  Chron- 
icle publishes  one  of  his  earliest  stories. 
xix-154. 

STODDARD,  Charles  Warren,  poem  of 
welcome  to  ex-President  Grant  in  Chron- 
icle,  xv-118. 

STOCK,  Ernest  C.  police  reporter  for 
half  a  century,   xiii-105. 

STOCK  EXCHANGE,  becomes  a  news- 
paper, x-80;  dies  when  mining  stock 
gambling  subsides,  xviil-145. 


Index 


;>59 


STUCK  clAMBLERS,  abandon  Scat- 
after  adoption  of  Constitution  of  1ST9, 
.\ii-95. 

STOCK  REPORT,  becomes  a  news- 
paper, x-SO. 

STREET.  Arthur,  reporter  for,  Chron- 
icle,  xix-159. 

SUBURBS,  special  editions  printed 
for  by  San  Francisco  papers,  xxii-182. 

SUMMER  RESORTS,  multiplication 
of,  xx-166. 

SUMNER,  Charles,  attaclt  on  discussed 
virulently,  vi-43. 

SUN,  career  of,  v-37. 

SUNDAY  MAGAZINE  Chronicle  starts 
feature,  xiii-99;  Chronicle  embarrasses 
weeklies,  xiii-103;  struggle  to  secure 
matter  for  in  eighties,  xin-103;  cost  of 
white  paper,  xix-153;  library  of  American 
people,  xlx-154;  the  sheet  anchor  of  mod- 
ern literary  workers,  xix-154;  contrib- 
uted to  by  the  best  authors,  xix-154; 
wlien  authors  welcomed  tlie  syndicate, 
xix-154;  preparation  of  special  articles, 
xix-155;  illustration  promotes  their  pop- 
ularity, xix-155:  use  of  halftones  and 
colored  pictures,  xix-155;  editors  of 
Chronicle's,  xix-159;  first  editor  of 
Chronicle's,  xix-159. 

SUNDAY  VARIETIES,  career  of,  v-37. 

SUNRISE  CASE,  brutal  treatment  of 
sailors  exposed,  x-7S. 

SUTLIFFE.  Albert,  member  of  Chron- 
icle staff,  xiii-104;  early  book  reviewer 
of  Chronicle,   xvi-132. 

SUTTER'S  MILL,  gold  discovered,  i-2. 

SYDNEY  COVES,  San  Francisco's 
early  criminal  element,  ii-12. 

SYNDICATES,  authors  appear  in 
newspapers  in  advance  of  books,  xix-15!; 
part  played  by  them,  xix-154. 

— T— 

TAXATION,  low  taxes  People's  party 
slogan,  v-33;  George  K.  Fitch  advocates 
low,  ix-74;  Courts  nullify  provision  of 
Constitution  of  1879  designed  to  remove 
inequalities,  xii-95;  more  equitable  under 
Constitution  of  1879,  xv-119;  the  dollar 
limit  policy,  xviii-147;  limitation  of  key- 
note of  municipal  politics,  xviii-147; 
Chris  Buckley  and  dollar  limit  policy, 
xviii-147:  dominating  fear  of  excessive, 
xx-161;  demand  for  low  made  use  of  bv 
boss,   xx-163. 

TELEGRAPH,  line  constructed  from 
San  Francisco  to  Point  Lobos,  ii-10;  line 
between  San  Francisco  and  San  Jose,  ii- 
10;  Los  Angeles  and  San  Francisco  con- 
nected, ii-11;  use  of  news  improves  ap- 
pearance of  papers,  vi-42;  hill  used  as 
maritime  lookout,  vi-48;  liberal  use  of 
by  San  Francisco  paper.«5,  xiv-114:  intro- 
duction of  wireless,  xxii-181. 

TELEPHONE,  its  introduction  in  1879, 
xix-156;  part  played  by  it  in  modern 
newspaper  ofRce,  xix-156;  part  played  bv 
it  in  verifying  reports,  xix-157. 

TERRY.  David  S..  kills  Broderick  in 
a  duel,  vi-44;  political  career,  vi-45. 

TETRAZZINT.  Prima  Donna  sings  in 
public,  xxi-178. 

TIMES,  career  of  San  Francisco,  x-37; 
of  London  experiments  in  tvpesetting, 
xi.\-155. 


TIMMINS,  Jolin.  earliest  manuninK 
editor   of   Chronicle,    xiii-105. 

TITLES,  new.spapers  always  urgent 
for  settlejnent,  iii-18. 

TONG  KING,  Albert  Sutliffe  reports 
rebellion  for  Chronicle,  xiii-104. 

TOWNSEND,  Edward,  Chronicle  re- 
porter, xvi-133;  elected  to  Congress,  xvi- 

TOWNSEND,  George  Alfred,  special 
correspondent    of    Chronicle,    xvi-133. 

TOWN  TALK  (Pictorial),  career  of 
San  Francisco,  v-37. 

TRADERS,  Yankee  skippers  visit  the 
missions,  i-3. 

TRIBUNE,  Oakland,  affords  facilities 
to   San    Francisco    morning    papers,    xxi- 

TRUE  VIGILANTE,  career  of  San 
Franc.sco,  v-37. 

TRUSTS,  Chronicle  publishes  ex- 
tended monograph  on,  xx-165. 

TYPEWRITERS,  general  use  of  in 
newspaper  offices,  xix-15S. 

TYPOGRAPHY,  headings  in  early 
days,  xiii-97;  cost  of  hand  composition, 
xiii-101;  flamboyant  headings  objected  to 
by  Pickering  and  Fitch,  xviii-146;  experi- 
ments in  machine  typesetting,  xix-155; 
Mergenthaler's  linotype,  xix-156;  econo- 
mies effected  by  linotype,  xix-156;  the 
growth  of  freaking,  xix-156. 


— u— 

UPTOK,    Matthew   G.,    editorial   writer 
Bulletin,  xviii-146. 


— V— 

VACATION,  growtli  uf  the  liabit,  xx- 
166. 

VALLEJO,  Mariano  O.,  witli  Larkin 
seeks  to  appropriate  name  San  Fran- 
cisco, i-7. 

VANDERBILT,  Cornelius,  project^5 
Nicaragua  canal,  vi-4S. 

VAN  NESS  AVENUE,  propo.si^l  to 
make  it  business  centei-,  xxi-175. 

VERDENAL,  D.  P.,  on  deck  in  the 
eighties,  xvi-131. 

VIGILANCE  COMMITTEE,  first  one. 
formed  in  1851,  ii-12;  the  organization 
of  1856,  ii-13;  actions  of  that  of  1856 
widely  discussed,  iv-24;  called  together 
when  James  King  of  William  is  shot, 
iv-29;  causes  witlidrawal  of  patronage 
from  San  Francisco  Herald,  iv-30;  Peo- 
ple's party  formed  by  its  members,  \-:'>3; 
its  acts  defended,  vi-44. 

VIVIAN,  Thomas  J.,  dramatic  critic 
and  special  writer  for  Chronicle,  xri- 
132;  author  of  article  on  future  of  avia- 
tion written  in  18S1,  xiii-in3. 


— w— 

WALKER.  William,  liis  filibustering 
exploits,  iii-21. 

WARD,  Josiah,  city  editor  of  Exam- 
iner,  xix-159. 

WARDELL.  B.  A.,  cashier  of  Chron- 
icle,  xxi-177. 


30 


360 


Index 


AVAR  ORPHANS.  Chronicle  collects 
toys  and  clothing  for,  xxii-lS6. 

"WASHINGTON,  B.  F.,  one  of  founders 
of  Examiner,  xiii-63. 

WATER  SUPPLY,  efforts  of  Spring 
Valley  to  sell  at  an  exorbitant  figure 
defeated,  xxiii-194. 

AVAVE,  published  by  Cosgrave  and 
Hume,  xix-160. 

WEATHER  WARNINGS,  service  in- 
stituted by  Chronicle,  xvi-127. 

AVEEKS,  George  F..  Clironicle's  first 
Sunday  editor,  xix-159. 

AVELLER,  Charles  L.,  one  of  founders 
of    Examiner,    viii-63. 

WESTERN  ASSOCIATED  PRESS, 
takes  over  Chronicle  Press  Association, 
xvi-130. 

WESTERN  UNION  TELEGRAPH, 
carries  40,000  telegraphic  report  of  prize 
fight   for  Chronicle,   xxi-17S. 

WHARVES.  the  long  wharf  con- 
structed by  Meiggs,   iv-32. 

WHEAT,  enofmous  shipments  of,  vi-51. 

WHEELAN,  Fairfax,  efforts  to  force 
honest    elections,    xx-164. 

WHIG,   career  of  San   Francisco,  v-37. 

WIGGIN,  Marcus  P.,  editorial  writer 
for  Chronicle,  xix-159. 

WILI>TAM.  .Tames  King  of,  see  King 
James  of  William. 

WILSON,  Piercv,  book  reviewer  for 
Chronicle,   xvi-132. 

WIRELESS,  introduction  of  Marconi 
system,  xxii-lSl. 


WOMEN,   their   club  activities,  xx-]fi7. 

WOOD,  William  S.,  a  contemporary 
worker  with  Clemens,  viii-66. 

— Y— 

VERBA  BUENA,  in  1S41,  i-3;  William 
Sturgis  Hinckley  its  first  Alcalde,  i-3; 
first  store  started  1S36,  i-3:  first  bridge 
constructed,  i-3;  did  not  awaken  until 
advent  of  printing  press,  i-4;  its  first 
newspaper  issued,  i-4;  conditions  in  dur- 
ing year  after  occvipation,  i-6;  name 
changed  to  San  Francisco,  i-7;  com- 
merce of  first  year  after  occupation,  i-7; 
Verba  Buena  Cemetery  used  as  City  Hall 
site,  xvili-147. 

VOUNG,  JOHN  P.,  early  journalistic 
career,  xiii-107;  made  managing  editor 
of  Chronicle  1S7S,  xiii-107;  writes  book 
on  bimetallism  for  Chronicle,  xviii-15]  ; 
writes  manufacturing  industries  of 
Japan  for  Chronicle,  xviii-1.52;  his  man- 
ufacturing industries  of  Japan  published 
as  a  Senate  public  document,  xviii-152; 
monograph  by  him  on  trusts  written  for 
The  Chronicle,  xx-165;  writes  "Journal- 
ism in  California"  for  Chronicle's  Golden 
Jubilee  edition,  xxiii-191. 


ZINCOGRAPH,  process  of  making,  xvi- 
131. 


INDEX 


Pacific  Coast  and  Exposition 
Biographies 


PAGE 

Adams,  Charles  F 235 

Alexander,  H.  F 236 

Bissell,  William  A 237 

Blake,  Anson  S 238 

Blakeman,  Thomas  Z 239 

Boardman,  Lonis    P 240 

Boardman,  Philip  C 241 

Bradley,  George  0 242 

Briggs,  Herbert  F 243 

Byington,   William   H.,   Jr 244 

Cantrell,  Russell  W 245 

Cashin,  Thomas  A 246 

Chisholm,  Stuart   341 

Clayberg,  John  B 247 

Gohen,  Alfred   Austen 248 

Colvin,  Francis  M 249 

Corson,  Henry  L 250 

Coryell,  John  B 251 

Crabbe,  John  H 252 

Crocker,   Charles   H 253 

Crothers,  Judge  George  E 254 

Curtis,  Allen  A 255 

d 'Albergaria,  Dr.  M.  C.  M.  Soares.  .  256 

Davis,  James  R 257 

Denson,  S.   C 258 

Donaldson,  John  T 259 

Dorn.  Walter  E 260 

Dorsey,  John   W 261 

Eggers,  Frederick    262 

Eiekhoft',  Henry 263 


PAGE. 

Elston,  J.  A 340 

Engels,  Henry    264 

Fenton,  James  E 265 

Fleishhacker,  Herbert    26G 

Fontecha,  Dr.  Antonio  A.  Ramirez  F.  267 

Forney,  C.  S   S 268 

Friek,  A.  L 269 

Gaunt,   Charles   H.,   Jr 270 

Ginty,  John    271 

Hall,  T.  Seymour 272 

Hammon,  Wendell  P 273 

Hanify,  John  R 274 

Henry,  Carl  A 275 

Hertz,  Alfred  276 

Holmes,  Howard  C 277 

Horner,  C.  F 278 

Horsburgh,  James,  Jr 279 

Humphrey,   Charles   F 280 

Hutton,  Cassius  A 281 

Jackling,  Colonel  Daniel  C 282 

Jacks,  Lyle   T 283 

Jones,    Henry    T 284 

Keesliug,  Francis  V 285 

Kingsbury,  E.  J 2S6 

Lastreto,  Eniilio 287 

Latimer,  Jay  Monroe 288 

Lynch,  Jeremiah 289-90 


3G1 


362 


Biographical  Index 


TACi:. 

MeClellau,  John  J 291 

McCormick,  Charles  R 292 

McKinley,  Benjamin  L 293 

Manning,  James  E 294 

Martin,  Joseph    295 

Matson,  Captain  William 296 

Miley,  E.J 297 

Miller,  Thomas  L 298 

Minot,  Thomas  S 299 

Molony,  J.  R .300 

Moran,   P.   J 301 

Morf,  Panl  G 302 

Morris,  Leon  E 303 

Mullgardt,   Louis   C 304 

Mur.loek,  C.  P 305 

Murphy,  Thomas  R 306 

Murray,        MajorGeneral       Arthur, 

U.  S.  A 307 

Noble,  Hiram  Holmes 308 

Nunlist,   William   A 309 

O  'Brien,  Edward  II 310 

Percy,   John  Albert 311 

Piper,  Charles  E 340 

Preston,   John   W 312 

Price,  George   E 313 

Rand,  W.   J.,  Jr 314 


PAGE. 

Rispin,  H.  A 315 

Roos,    Robert   A 316 

Rosenheim,    Samuel    317 

Rothschild,  Joseph    318 

Rulofson,  A.   C 319 

Schmitt,   Milton  L 320 

Sea,  William,  Jr 321 

Short,  Frank    H 322 

Short,  Frank    R 323 

Shumate,  Dr.  Thomas  E 324 

Soto,  R.  M.  F 325 

Stoddard,  George  Hill 326 

Talbott,    Edward    J 327 

Trask,  J.  E.  D 328 

Vandercook,  A.  E 329 

Van  Ee,  J.  Charles  Kemp 330 

Wenzelberger,  A 331 

White,  J.  E 332 

Whiting,   Randolph  A' 333 

Whitney,  Vincent    334 

Wilbur,  Edward  D 335 

Wilson,  Fred   S 336 

Wilson,  John  Ralph   337 

Wingfielil,  George   338 

Woolley,  Hyrum  S 339 


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